


Forelska

by lilithenaltum



Series: And They Were Roommates... [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Black Character(s), F/M, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, Interracial Relationship, Interspecies Relationship(s), Loki is a good boyfriend, Louisiana, Meet the Family, Mel has a breakdown. It's very much overdue, Morning Cuddles, Morning Sex, Polyamory, Psychosis, Racism, Self-Insert, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:31:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithenaltum/pseuds/lilithenaltum
Summary: Loki and Mel navigate the waters of a new and very unexpected relationship, discovering that their differences bind them together quite the same way their similarities do.Everything should be coming up roses, except there's a dinner with her parents and his brother and a former lover cum best friend to deal with, which means Mel can't catch a break and Loki's probably going to catch hell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part three of this series: start first with [Råvdyrkjeft](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578728) and then to [Faen ta Deg](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927903) before reading this one. Enjoy!

 

_**Forelska:**   Faroese; meaning "to fall in love"_

_**** _

* * *

 

 

Lately, Loki had begun to really like the mornings.

 

Well, the early mornings, to be exact, when the world was mostly still asleep and the air was just a bit cooler than it would be for the majority of the day. The sun peaks sleepy eyes and gentle rays over the softly lapping Reservoir. Birds chirp quietly, as they too are afraid of breaking the slumber of the small Southern town. And in the dark stillness of his bedroom, Loki starts to stir.

 

He loves to wake like this. It’s easy, cozy, damn near therapeutic to wake gentle and soft surrounded by cool sheets and the almost comforting whir of the little white fan next to his bed. He stretches his long legs and almost laughs when his ankles hook over the end of the mattress. No matter how hard they’d searched, neither he nor Mel could find a bed long enough to suit his tall frame. But it was of no matter; the pillowtop mattress she’d splurged on buying him was luxurious and welcoming and sleep came easy to him in it.

 

And speaking of Mel…

 

Just like clockwork, he heard the crack of his door and the padding of her feet along the floorboards as she tries in vain to sneak into his room. He hated to burst her little bubble by explaining that he could hear well enough to read her thoughts at times, mostly because it was so adorable for her to assume, in all her drowsy glory, that she could creep up on him without notice. And so, once again, he let the little charade go on. And just like she always did, she peeled back the blankets and slid into bed beside him, shivering a bit at the chill but not daring to leave. This was her early morning sanctuary, wrapped in his arms and tucked beneath his chin, safe and sound.

 

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

And so, he reaches over and clicks off the switch to the cooling comforter, opening blue green eyes in the dim room to find her sleepy brown ones staring at him the way she always did. There was an odd mixture of curiosity and affection, a little annoyance too, and that amused him so much, he couldn’t help but to crack a hint of a smile.

 

“Good morning, darling,” he murmurs, watching those eyes dilate just a bit at the gravel in his sleep worn voice. He knew she loved his voice, loved every timbre and octave of it and when he dropped it-either by deliberation or just because he’d been asleep for eight hours-her body reacted without her consciously aware of it. He could pick up little things about it, even if she swore up and down nothing he did affected her as much as he claimed it did. But he knew it did. And honestly, that was all that mattered.

 

“Mornin’,” she breathes out, and he catches a slight hint of artificial mint. Loki chuckles at the thought that she’d drug herself from her own bed and brushed her teeth enough to knock the morning breath out. He’d told her more than once that it didn’t bother him a bit, and yet, she insisted, probably for her own vanity.

 

“Have the linens warmed enough for you?” he asks, rubbing her back through her pajamas as she curls up next to him. She hums something that sounds like a yes and presses soft lips to his jaw, her hands grabbing hold of his bare shoulders to pull him atop her.

 

“Could be a ‘lil bit warmer but…I’m okay.”

 

She catches his eye and blinks slowly and not for the first time is Loki startled by how beautiful this woman is, mussed curling hair and all. She glimmers like bronze in the barely there sunlight that creeps through the half shut blinds, her smile something like a dream and oh so very sweet. No matter how hard she tried to pretend she was a hard ass, at her core, she was nothing less than kind and generous and loving and it bothered him a bit that she wasted all of that on someone like him. But those were angsty thoughts for another day, not a lovely August morning right after dawn.

 

Loki slips a cool hand beneath her waist and settles to the side of her, kissing along her temple and his breath ruffling the curls at her hairline as he closes his eyes once more. She usually falls asleep again once she’s settled down beside him, resting for another hour and a half until it’s time for her to dress and pile her hair up into a bun and rush out the door to work. Today is Friday, so she gets the chance to be a little more lazy; she doesn’t have to go in until nine o’clock, so he won’t wake her until about a quarter after eight.

 

“Loki,” she rasps out, and he sighs deeply at the sound of his name on her lips. He loves her voice as well, all the little quirks and oddities, the undercurrent of sweetness, the bite and steel when she’s angry. He loves the twang and the way her accent blossoms when she’s excited, or how welcoming it sounds when she yells down the hall that she’s got dinner ready. But right now, he can hear the arousal in it and it sparks a fire in him the way nearly everything else about her does.

 

“Yes, my darling.”

 

 _My darling_ , he thinks, satisfied. She was his. There was an arrangement now between the two of them, made shortly after the tornado a few months before, that he was her “boyfriend'' and she his “girlfriend”. It sounded a bit juvenile and a little trite, but it was the Midgard way so he went with it. And besides, intended and betrothed were a little too heavy handed right now.

 

“Mmm...I wanna…”

 

He chuckles then, deep and dark because he does know what she wants and he so badly wants to give it to her. He wonders if she’ll get any extra sleep this morning, or if she’ll want to spend the two hours she’s got left with his head between her thighs. He’s partial to the latter. She shivers and this time he knows it’s not from the cold.

 

“How do you want me this morning?” he asks, but he’s already rolling over so she can climb atop him and she does, peeling the tiny, thin tank she wears and those obscenely short shorts off her lush frame. He watches every move she makes, watches the flex of the muscles in her thick thighs and the jiggle of her plump ass whenever she settles in his lap. She’s not wearing panties under the shorts, as usual, so she’s completely bare and he can’t help sliding his hands along her legs to her hips, to the dip of her waist, up to her full breasts where he can skim the underside of them with his fingers.

 

“Obviously, I’m gettin’ on top,” she quips, but then she moans, low and breathless when he tweaks one of her dusky nipples with a fingernail. “Do that again,” she implores him, and he does, over and over until she’s grinding in his lap and whimpering. She leans down to kiss him, all tongue and teeth, lazy and a little sloppy, but he loves it like this when she doesn’t hold back and her mouth is warm and pliable. She claims to not have much practice with kissing but he wouldn’t know from how she devours him now, her lips pushing and sliding against his own, then coming in to nip and suck a bit. He loves her lips, too, especially when they’re slick with their shared saliva and a little swollen from his worrying teeth.

 

“Restrained, or no?” he asks, and she takes only a second to think before she shakes her head.

 

“I need you to touch me,” she admits. A hint of a blush creeps across her chest and it’s absolutely adorable, though he can’t quite figure out why she’s still so shy about what they’re doing. They’ve been sharing each other’s bodies since mid March; she should be used to him by now. But for whatever reason, it’s cute that she isn’t.

 

“Oh, most definitely,” he murmurs, greedily grasping peals of her flesh in his broad hands. “One of my utmost pleasures, you know. Especially,” he continues, his hands slipping around to her bottom, “this delicious arse of yours.”

 

“You know, I’m actually startin’ to like it when you call it an _arse_.”

 

He grins and squeezes for good measure and she practically mewls, her heat rubbing across the bare skin of his belly. For this to work, he’s going to have to be a little more naked, so he takes his hands off her body begrudgingly and pulls the pants he wears down, shucking them off with his feet and pushing them down the bed until they fall off the mattress. No sooner is his cock free does she grab it, her hands warm and welcoming on the skin there and he has to remind himself to warm his body temperature a little more so she isn't fucking an iced lolly.

 

That had been fun, honestly, but the consequence was that her clit was numb for two days after and he didn't want that at all.

 

She straddles him once more and slides the tip of him across her wet, aching core, lining him up just right.

 

"Are you sure you're ready?" he pants out, wanting nothing more than for her to sink down and ride him but he doesn't want her not wet enough and hurting. She doesn't answer, instead opting to wiggle her hips a bit to make sure the head of him fits and then she's moaning low and deep, as he fills her to the brim and his breath leaves his chest.

 

Norns, that would never get old. Never ever.

 

"I guess that's a yeah," she says in a half whisper. "Fuck, I woke up horny, Loki. I've wanted this since my eyes opened."

 

"That just means that I didn't fuck you thoroughly enough last night," he says, hissing a little when she pulls up and then slides back down, her mouth open and eyes heavy. "Gods, you feel so good, my darling."

 

She grins at his praise and clenches around him again as she starts a swift pace. And he lets her use him, content to merely lay back and watch her body move atop his, her hair falling behind her like a dark cloud, her breasts bouncing delightfully with every move of her hips. He strokes the skin of her thighs with his nails, back and forth as she works her way to what he hopes will be a fulfilling and hunger quenching orgasm, but from the look on her face, she's struggling to find it.

 

"What do you need of me?" he asks her, quiet in the early morning and she whimpers a bit, her chest heaving with the need to breathe.

 

"Touch me," she begs him. "Please. Just touch...anywhere, I don't give a fuck."

 

He slides his hands up her thighs, nails catching her skin, and then to her hips and up her sides, over and over. He pulls her close and changes the angle a little, so that when she slides down once more and starts to move, she groans out in pleasure. She buries her head into the crook of his neck and her pants tickle his skin, her hands grasping above his head to the pillows as she pushes back and then up and he finds purchase in the mattress to meet her, earning a sharp gasp and the toss of her head. She looks glorious like this, sweaty skinned and flushed, her mouth opened and her eyes screwed shut.

 

Loki can feel pleasure creeping up his spine and so he digs his hands into the flesh of her ass and holds her steady as he thrusts, hard and deliberate, just shy of painful. She keens beautifully and works with him until they’re both too breathless to say anything. There is just her sharp, rasping moans and his choked grunts, a spiral if intense heat and electricity coursing through his body until she arches her back with a shout and whines out his name, the syllables slurred out as if she were drunk. The tight, hot clenching of her sweet pussy sends him into his own orgasm and she winds her hips in little circles as she chases the aftershocks.

 

It takes a moment for his heart to settle into something close to normal, but by the time it does, she’s half asleep already. He doesn’t have the heart to stir her, though it’s probably time for her to get in the shower and wash the smell of their love making from her body. He can't imagine she’ll want to walk into work covered in sweat and love bites. But she feels sublime draped over his chest like this and her sweet, soft little breaths tug at his heart so acutely that he doesn’t bother with shaking her to alertness. He drapes the blanket over her and settles back in the bed, watching as the sun rises a little more through the blinds.

 

* * *

 

 

His Friday goes about the same as all the other Fridays so far.

 

He finally wakes Mel around 8:30 and she stumbles into the bathroom as if she’s got fire on her heels. There isn’t time for a shower after all, but she washes up quickly in the sink and throws on her clothes in a record ten minutes, hauling out the door with her purse tucked under her arm and her shoes in the other hand. She leaves him with a quick kiss and flies down the driveway of the house and leaves him standing on the porch in the bright, warm sun, watching her and missing her already.

 

And then it’s time to begin his day.

 

There’s breakfast at around 9:40, then a text to make sure Mel had gotten to work alright and settled in. He cleans up the house and watches Perry Mason, calls Thor but doesn’t get an answer, then takes a walk down the road to the liquor store to bother the manager, Amanda. She lets him loaf about on the porch for a while and sip on leftover margarita mix she’d taken out the machine to clean, until he’s shooed off and he’s got to cut through the woods to get home. Mel doesn’t text back until her lunch break at one, calling him instead of sending another message and he chats with her over the line for thirty minutes as she runs errands. 

 

“I will never understand why there’s so much damned traffic in this little two horse town,” she grumbles, somewhere in the grocery store picking up food. “The rate I’m goin’ I won’t make it back to work on time and I really don’t wanna hear shit about me being late again.”

 

“You’ll be fine, I’m sure of it,” he says, tempted to flex the boundaries of the invisible bonds that keep him from teleporting. There would be consequences, Strange had said, but Loki hadn’t been made aware of exactly what those consequences were. If it meant he could help his Mel out, it might be worth it.

 

“I’m gonna have to get the rest when I get off, probably,” she says with a sigh. “But at least I’ve got the milk! It’s more expensive in Toledo Town.” There’s a pause and a shuffle as he hears her say hello to the cashier, and he shifts on the couch, stretching his legs out and leaning his head backward on the arm of the chair. “Do you want any more cereal? Are we out?”

 

“I think so,” he says, though he’d made a simple omelette that morning. “But don’t worry too much about it. If all else fails, I’ll grab a box from the store myself.”

 

“Walking?” She scoffs. “Loki, it’s a two mile walk from the house to the Market Basket up the road. That’s too far.”

 

“Two miles is nothing,” he insists, trying to sound a lot more confident than he feels in his ability to hike the sweltering woods in this heat. Had this been home, he could have walked twenty miles in half a day, easily. But the gravity and humidity of Midgard were significantly different and his fitness level had gone to nill over the last year of lazing around, eating rich foods and watching television. 

 

Out the corner of his eye, he makes note of how high the grass is outside and makes a decision to give it a quick shear before she got off. That would be his exercise for the day.

 

“I’m just sayin’. I don’t really have get the cereal right now, I just wanted to get all my shopping out the way-thank you!-um, before I get off cause once I’m in that car at 5:30-”

 

“You’re not getting out until you’re in the driveway,” he says with a chuckle. “I understand, dearest, no worries. We can get cereal later, then.”

 

“Alright. Look, I’ve gotta run. I’ve got a few minutes to get to the bank and clocked in and the traffic is hell.”

 

“Then off you go. And do be careful. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

 

He wastes a few more hours napping, then wakes up to his alarm at 4:30 to mow the yard. It’s an easy endeavor, though his first few attempts had been a disaster of sorts. Mel screaming behind him as he chased the lawn mower down the hill, towards the lake, was now a fond memory, but at the time, he’d been mortified. He shoots the machine a sideways look as he shoves his large, straw hat on and slides his hands into the well worn work gloves from the kitchen closet.

 

Mel’s yard is small, mostly a circle of gravel and several pine trees where straw gather and cradle the dirt lined ground. The only grass that grows lies close to the house itself, and so Loki figures it won’t take him but about twenty minutes to get everything tidied up. He doesn’t account for the fact that the humidity level is 90 percent, or that it’s still incredibly hot at almost five o’clock, so he has to pause every few minutes and chug water as he stands in the ridiculously hot sun. But Loki wasn’t a quitter, and though mowing threatens to overwhelm him, he finishes, with enough time to put the mower in the shed and to slip inside the cool house and grab another drink.

 

He hears her car coming up the drive before he ever sees it, as he leans against the frame of the kitchen door. He isn't sure what she's blasting, only that it's loud and the beat thumps along pleasantly, and he takes a moment to watch her without her noticing. She's in her element like this, "hauling ass" as she calls it down her road at 20 miles over the speed limit, her music near deafening but there's always this beautiful happy glow to her when she can just be, alone.

 

He wishes she'd be that inhibited when he was in the car, but he knows it hasn't been long enough for her to truly let go that way. One day, he hopes he'll see it first hand and in person and maybe he'll join her. It's a pleasant thought, and he takes that with him as she slows and parks the car underneath the carport.

 

Loki pops over to the freezer and moves a few bags of frozen vegetables around until he's made himself a seat. He's still too hot and his stomach churns with the need to vomit, the way it does whenever he's overheated. But his headache isn't too bad, so it's nothing a good sit in the cold won't do. And the freezer was the quickest way of accomplishing that task. He'd done it before, but never in Mel's presence. She was rather prickly about her freezer and refrigerator, commenting on more than one occasion that he'd better make sure to wash his hands thoroughly while rifling through either.

 

He had nodded in an exaggerated way when she'd gotten angry about it before, enough so she'd know he really wasn't going to give a good goddamn about her arbitrary little rules, but he had found himself actually following them. That was pretty much how everything worked at the house near the Reservoir; she said one thing and he insisted he'd do it another but ended up following her direction. And everything always worked out okay when she suggested something anyway, so he saw no reason to let up on their little routine.

 

The screen door bangs open and he hears the rustle of plastic grocery bags as she calls out to him.

 

"I'm home, Loki!"

 

"In the kitchen, darling!"

 

“Did you mow the yard?” she asks, a little bit of awe in her voice, but he hears the irritation, too, probably bolstered by the fact that it’s 89 degrees out and he’s notoriously pale and very, very sensitive to heat. She’s going to be even more irritable when she sees what he’s doing in the kitchen.

 

“I did,” he calls, and just like he thought, her reaction is one of slight amusement and absolute annoyance.

 

“You’re cleaning that shit out, by the way.”

 

“But of course,” he quips, grinning slightly when she huffs and hauls her grocery bags onto the kitchen table. Loki wiggles his legs draped over the freezer and sighs at just how nice it feels to be surrounded by the frost. He exaggerates the gesture just to get a reaction and she doesn’t disappoint him. The expression on her face shifts back and forth until she can’t help but laugh.

 

“Why did you even attempt to mow the yard? And in the middle of the damn day, even. It’s hot.”

 

“It needed to be done and I was doing nothing important-“

 

“And you know good and damn well if you get even the slightest bit overheated, you get all sick and shit. I don’t wanna have to drag you to the ER, not when you weigh as much as you do.”

 

“I’m fine,” he insists, a little annoyed now himself because she does this when he gets hot, or when he’s outside too long, and it reminds him entirely too much of his mother and he doesn’t really want to think about Frigga and how she’s no longer here. He doesn’t want to think about how much his mother would have absolutely adored Mel, either, because they’ll never get to meet and that’s more painful than he’d ever imagined. So he waves his hand and tries to dismiss her concerns because really, he’s fine.

 

He’s a little clammy and his pulse is doing this weird pitter patter thing but if he sits here for a few more minutes he’ll be right as rain.

 

“Really? Is that why you’re teeter totterin’ between grey and light blue?”

 

He glances down at his hands and grimaces to see the Jotun form starting to trickle through, and yeah, maybe he’s a little more overheated than he originally thought, but it’ll pass.

 

“I’m fine. I’ve been through much worse, let me tell you. You know, even if I were to pass out or whatever, I’d be fine. I’m notoriously hard to kill.”

 

She glares at him for a long moment until the daggers that are her eyes become a tad bit uncomfortable so he sighs and clears his throat, shifting a bit in the freezer till he finds the bag of ice he’s sitting on. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he says quietly, because he is. She’s worried about him and he’s not being a very good boyfriend by making her worry.

 

But he was so used to not caring one way or another what happened to him, or how it bothered anyone, and it was such a hard habit to break.

 

“Uh huh. Just…wait till after six or so if you wanna do yard work. Okay? At least till October, November.”

 

The shrillness in her voice peters out and she sucks in air, as if she’s fighting something inside herself but the moment passes before he can comment on it. And he lets it. She’ll talk if she wants. Maybe. She’s almost as bad as he is about expressing the hard emotions, so he understands.

 

“I’ll make a mental note of it.” He suppresses the sigh that nearly slips from his lips when he spreads the ice out across his chest, and just like that, his temperature drops so that he’s infinitely less sick feeling and a lot more comfortable. The color in his skin shifts to the usual pale pallor and his heart stops stammering so hard, so that he feels okay slipping out of the freezer. Cubes of ice clatter to the floor in a mess and he almost laughs when she shoots him another look, this one explicitly telling him he’s going to clean that up as well. Of course he will. He isn’t a cretin.

 

“See? Told you I’m a hearty sort of fellow.” He slips behind her and pulls her into his arms, laughing silently in his chest when she squeals at the cold and pulls away. “Afraid of a bit of chill?”

 

She snorts out a laugh and turns to him then, pressing her lips together so she doesn’t smile. He doesn’t like it when she does that because he loves her smile and how bright and beautiful it is. She claims she smiles too hard and too wide and that her mouth is too big and a myriad of other incredibly incorrect things. To tempt her to grin, he traces her lips with his thumb and is happy to find she’ll at least give him a soft smirk.

 

“You feel like a popsicle,” she says, lifting her hand to tug at the free strands of hair that have fallen from his bun.

 

“I thought you liked popsicles,” he responds, leaning into her touch so that her fingers brush across his forehead. It’s almost embarrassing how much he needs to feel her touching him at all times. He assumes it’s a lingering symptom of being deprived of intimate touch for far too long. He’s reminded of how he’d basked in the light of the sun after returning to Asgard and taking up the guise of his father, and for a moment he can’t help but compare the woman in front of him to that star. She’s nearly as warm, but most definitely easier on his eyes.

 

“I love popsicles,” she says. “But not on my back I don’t.” She moves away from him then, slipping between him and the table, but her hand trails across his chest, and there’s a smile still on her face.

 

“Shall I warm up for you, then?”

 

“You still need to cool off. Go sit back in the freezer while I unpack the groceries, okay?”

 

“I’m fine,” he insists. He really is. But her glare makes him pause long enough that he sighs and heads back to the freezer and plops down inside. He winces when his bottom hits a frozen pack of chicken, and he winces when he tugs it from beneath him. “I suppose I’ve got to quit doing that,” he says when she laughs.

 

“Uh huh. Because you’re gonna fucking break the floor again and I don’t have the money to fix it.”

 

“I’ve been apologizing for that for months-“

 

“I know. I just like bringing it up.”

 

He wants to be annoyed but he can’t, not when she’s so pretty and her smile is that lovely. Instead, he feigns irritation and leans back in the freezer, arms crossed and eyes closed.

 

And maybe she was right. He had needed a bit more time to cool off because he doesn’t even have a lingering headache by the time she’s done putting the food away. He opens his eyes and finds her on tiptoe by the counter, stuffing the last box of his favorite breakfast cereal into the cabinet. He’s noticed she doesn’t even buy the kind she likes anymore. It’s only Lucky Charms and 2 percent milk and apple cinnamon oatmeal. And he knows she’s not a fan of any of the above. He wonders if she just skips breakfast now, and he doesn’t like the idea of that.

 

“So.”

 

She turns around to him when the box is put away. The expression on her face hovers between nervous and a little excited and he wonders what’s going on. Had she finally decided to quit that abysmal job she had? He’d love the idea of her staying home with him all the time. He could only imagine the kinds of things they could get into if she didn’t have to spend 9 hours away from him. He, too, could imagine how sore and sated she’d be, as well. There were positions they hadn’t even explored yet and maybe-

 

“You listenin’?” she asks, snapping him out of his lust filled fantasy of her naked all the time, save for perhaps his helmet and cape, as he kept her on the verge of orgasm for hours and hours. He cleared his throat and blinked, offering her a soft smile.

 

“I am.”

 

“So what’d I say?”

 

He almost blanks but he hadn’t heard anything in the background that sounded like she’d been talking, so he steeples his fingers and meets her gaze head on. He makes a conscious effort not to get lost in the dark brown of her eyes. He’s done that entirely too much lately.

 

“Nothing, darling. You hadn’t said a thing yet except ‘so’.”

 

She narrows her eyes and purses her lips before her smirk widens and she laughs. “Uh huh. Alright. You got lucky that time.”

 

He mentally pats himself on the back. “Luck is subjective. I simply make it my priority to listen to you.”

 

“Bullshit. But anyway.” She lets out a sigh and moves over to the freezer, leaning forward so that they’re closer. He’s noticed it’s something she does when she really wants him to pay attention, so he does so. He clears his mind of anything except what she’s saying right now. He likes to think that whatever he lacks in the “good boyfriend” department, he can make up for in the “good listener” department.

 

Or, at the very least, he can try. And he knows he’s a damned good lover. That has to count for something.

 

“Guess who’s comin’ over for dinner Sunday?”

 

“Whom?”

 

“Daddy and Mama. And my brother, too. And I was thinkin’…maybe I could video chat your brother and ask if he wanted to come along, and maybe…ya know. We could have a family dinner.”

 

The idea of having dinner with her family was a little bit intimidating, especially from what he’d heard of her mother. He’d never gotten the chance to meet her in the entire year he’d been in Louisiana; she and her husband were almost always gone somewhere else, off across to the other side of the country after Mel’s father’s retirement. It sounded like quite a lot of fun; Loki had other fantasies of Mel quitting her job and the two of them running around the United States with nothing to do but explore the country and make love.

 

Of course, that was if he could get clearance to even leave the state, and that had been up in the air for damned near two months. Pushing that thought aside, so he didn’t get annoyed again, he focused his attention once more on what Mel was saying, or, what she wasn’t saying.

 

She was nervous. She was nervous about her parents meeting him and possibly finding out about their little affair and he realizes, as he moves to crawl out the freezer, that he was as well.

 

And as much as he hated to admit, he was nervous for Thor to truly grasp how much Mel meant to him. It was one thing to insist via video message or texts that his roommate had become a little less irritating, or that they seemed to have begun getting along a lot better than they had on the onset of his sentence. It was entirely another to admit that his affection for the girl had grown exponentially, that he spent his hours while she was away cleaning and tending to her home, that he routinely thought up silly little ways to impress her and comfort her. He didn’t even need to mention their sexual relationship; that would only serve to egg his brother on in his insistence that Loki cared and far too much.

 

The truth of the matter, that Loki had barely even admitted to himself, was that he was possibly, quite maybe, probably falling head over heels in love. And he had no idea how to stop it.

 

He wasn’t even sure if he _wanted_ to stop it.

 

But that was beside the point she was making now, only her wide eyes and teeth worried lip giving away just how anxious she was about the dinner idea. And though he wasn’t sure if he could stand the idea of Thor knowing of his feelings for Mel, he also realized that she needed that little buffer more than he needed to keep his brother from finding out the truth of the matter.

 

And really, why was he so bothered by Thor knowing?

 

“That is entirely dependent on how busy he is or isn’t,” he says, referencing the fact that Thor was king and as king, had entirely too much to do most days to even stop and talk. It wasn’t something that Loki actually held against him, but it was something he sorely disliked. It was odd; a few years prior and he’d have not really cared one way or another if Thor wanted to talk to him about asinine things like how their day went, but now…after everything that they’d both gone through, he relished the times he could sit with Mel’s pad on the patio and video chat his brother and sometimes Brun and Sif and Heimdall, too.

 

He missed everyone from home. He missed home, too, but home was gone and there was not much he could do for that.

 

“Yeah, I know,” she continues. “I mean, if he can’t come, it’s fine, I just-“

 

“I’ll ask. And perhaps he could bring a guest to accompany?”

 

She almost rolls her eyes but stops just short of doing so and he chuckles. He knew all about her insecurities regarding Brun, but he had no idea why she still felt the way she does. So what if he and the Valkyrie had spent their time on the Statesman tumbling in each other’s sheets? That was water under the bridge now and Brun had become one of his best friends. There wasn’t anything else there between them.

 

And yet, Loki knew that maybe, just maybe, had Mel not been a factor, there possibly could have been. It was something he and Brun had actually discussed one day. And it’d startled him into really thinking about how much his relationship with Brun affected Mel and why he even cared. Of course, that had been before the tornado and before he’d gotten actual proof she was jealous. And that was before he’d pulled her into his lap on the side of the highway and kissed her deeply and told her that she was what he wanted.

 

Even so, it lingered. And he could understand why.

 

“Yeah, I…sure. I guess.”

 

“It doesn’t have to be Brun. It could be Heim or even Sif. You’ve not met Sif yet.”

 

“Yeah. I haven’t. I mean, but isn’t your brother kinda sorta dating Brunhilde now?”

 

“I honestly don’t know what they’re doing,” he confesses, because he doesn’t. Truthfully, he doesn’t think Thor nor Brun know either. And then there was Sif, who had been hopelessly in love with Thor since childhood and had almost instantly warmed to Brun and who maybe was in on the whole thing, too. It was a mess, really. And he was itching to see it in person. He grins. “How about this: I’ll call Thor and ask him to bring along the entire gang. Brun and Sif and Heim, too.”

 

“That’s gonna leave everyone alone, yeah? I mean, the king can’t run off like that by himself.”

 

“They’ve got Korg and Miek in the council still. They’ll be fine for an evening, I’m sure. It’ll only take but a moment to get here from Norway. Strange left my brother with a portal with which to visit.”

 

He doesn’t vocalize that Thor had yet to actually used the damned thing, but that doesn’t really need to be said. Mel’s sympathetic face says it all. He’s eternally grateful that she doesn’t bring it up, however. He doesn’t want her getting all sappy on him about his almost juvenile need to see his brother in the flesh, or his stubborn refusal to just ask him.

 

“Alright. Well, if they can come, that’d be great. I have enough stuff I think. Unless, you know, I need more.”

 

“What did you plan to make?” he asks, and she throws open the fridge, gesturing to the four roasts and multitude of vegetables.

 

“Pot roast. Potatoes. Something traditional and easy I can do in the slow cooker. So I gotta start asap, cause I’ve only got two Crock Pots and I’ve got four roasts. And maybe I could do a cobbler? Daddy loves blackberry cobbler, and that bush is full to pickin’ so it’d all be fresh. Ice cream, too…does Thor like ice cream?”

 

He struggles to stifle his laugh at how she rambles and settles for a quirk of his lips, and he reaches out his hand to settle on her shoulder. It’s warmer now, and she seems to sink into him when he slips that hand down to wrap around her waist. He tucks his chin between her neck and shoulder and she blows out a long, slow breath.

 

“Am I overreacting?”

 

“A little, yes.”

 

“Should I only do two roasts?”

 

He makes a face. "Four is probably not enough, actually. Do you know how much my brother eats?”

 

She groans then, her head flopping back onto his shoulder and for a moment she stands just like that, needing his comfort and his touch and the assurance that this will all work out.

 

“Market Basket’s outta roasts. I would have driven to Brookshires, but I don’t feel like it right now. I’m tired. It’s the first and a Friday and we were so busy and I just…”

 

“Shhh, darling, relax,” he murmurs, his fingers grazing the soft skin of her belly as his hand slips beneath her blouse. “We’ve got tomorrow. We can do all this tomorrow.”

 

“We?”

 

She turns around a little then and her nose brushes his chin. Her eyes blink up at him and he smiles, leans forward and presses a kiss to her brow.

 

“ _We_. What sort of boyfriend would I be if I allowed you to attempt a dinner for my brother by yourself?”

 

She giggles then, the relief and gratitude palpable on her face. “Technically, it ain’t just for your brother. But yeah, okay. Maybe I wanna make a good impression. I don’t know.”

 

“He already likes you,” Loki supplies, attempting to keep her from getting any more worked up than she already is. “You don’t have to worry about impressing my brother.”

 

And then he pauses because that’s not at all what she’s talking about.

 

“She’d like you too, if you weren’t so prickly.”

 

He can feel her body stiffen and he presses his whole hand across her belly now, slides it up to the underside of her breasts. He wants to assure her that she’s his priority now, that whatever he’d had with Brun had been in the past. But he knows how she feels in comparison to his friend.

 

 _Inadequate_.

 

“I’m not fuckin’…shut up.” She moves to pull away from him but he holds her fast and kisses her neck, a grumble starting in his chest as he caresses her body. “Loki…you gotta quit doing that when I’m talkin’.”

 

“I’m not doing anything, sweetheart,” he purrs, but he is and she knows it. It’s a dirty trick, but it’s better than watching as she sinks inside her own mind and goes over and over how much she supposedly fails in comparison to Brunhilde. And no matter how much Loki insists that she’s what he wants, that she’s enough, that she shouldn’t compare herself to someone who’d been alive a lot longer than either of them, she still does.

 

It’s something he still does, even after all this time, so he can’t really get annoyed by it. He doesn’t understand why she does it though, not when he’s told her over and over how much he desires her.

 

“You’re tryin’ to distract me,” she mumbles, but when he pushes his hips up and into her bottom, she moans a little bit.

 

“Is it working?”

 

“Mmm…not…no.”

 

He moves his other hand from her hip to the waistband of her slacks and fiddles with the button, his mouth nibbling a line down her neck all the while. She breathes out his name and whimpers a little when he dips his fingers into her pants and her underwear and starts to stroke her, slowly and gently.

 

“Is it working now?”

 

“You’re not… _fuck_ …you’re not bein’ fair.”

 

“I don’t intend to be.” He hums in delight to find her wet and quivering against his fingers and he strokes her for long moments more, until she’s actively moving her hips along his hand and panting out his name, over and over in that breathless, needy way that he loves. It’s almost as good as when he’s deep inside her and she curls around him and cums, and there’s a cry from her throat and the rush of a heated “Loki” in there too. Almost.

 

“Stop fuckin’ teasing me,” she whines, and he does laugh then, pushing her pants down until they pool at her ankles and he bends her over the counter, his mouth mapping a line from her neck to her shoulders and he pushes her blouse up too, tugs it over her head and onto the floor. He wants her as naked as possible as quickly as possible, and he wants to have her tight and hot and wet around his cock and now. Never mind that they’d done this early this morning, or even that he’d had her the night before and the day before then.

 

He wants her all the time. He wishes she could understand that. She’s all he wants now and she doesn’t grasp how badly. But with Mel he knows it’s much better to show her than to try telling her. Her mind doesn’t quite understand his desire for her. And as he presses open mouth kisses to her bare back and unclasps her bra, as she groans when he slips two fingers inside her and starts to stroke, he’s determined that at least her body will know.

 

It doesn’t take much at all to get him going as far as she’s concerned. He just needs to drag his own pants down enough that his cock springs free, then pull her hips to his and slide it along the slick folds of her cunt. She arches her back and grabs his thighs, a slight hiss when he pulls his fingers free and starts to push the head if him inside instead.

 

“Is that too much sweetheart?” he asks, his voice shaking a little, but he doesn’t mind if she hears it. Maybe if she knows that he’s this close to falling to pieces every time he takes her, she’ll quit worrying so much about his past with anyone else.

 

“No,” she pants out, her moan chest deep as she pushes back onto his length and bottoms out. Her nails dig into the flesh of his thighs and she bows her head, takes a moment to catch her breath. “Fuck, Loki…fuck, you’re so deep, you’re so… _fuck_.”

 

“Too deep?” he asks, just to make sure, but then she pulls away and clenches around him at the same time and he loses anything else he wanted to say when she pushes back again. She keeps a slow, steady pace, fucking herself on his cock over and over and she moves her hands from his thighs to the counter and pushes just a little harder, crying out when she does. He’s careful not to move his hips in time with hers, not like this. He knows he could hurt her in this position, so he keeps passive and lets her seek pleasure on her own accord.

 

It feels so good when she swivels her hips and crouches on her tiptoes and takes him inside her so deeply. He has to grasp her hips to keep himself tethered to the now, so that he isn’t spilling before she’s ready. She always has to cum before he does. He refuses to do it any other way, even if she insists she’s fine with it. He holds off on his own orgasm as long as he’s physically able and lets her bounce up and down, until she’s almost growling with need.

 

“Move with me, baby, c’mon please,” she begs him. “You’re not gonna hurt me. I promise.” He’s loathe to push too far, almost scared he’ll hurt her if he does. He has before. He had been beating himself up about it ever since and that was weeks ago. 

 

She slows her hips and then pulls away from him, sliding off his cock with a slick plop. He thinks he likes that almost as much as he likes feeling her around him; she’s so tight and she feels so good and the sounds their bodies make when they’re fucking is erotic in every way.

 

“Why’d you stop?” he asks, breathless and a touch dizzy.

 

"Cause my thighs are burning and I don't wanna do this in the kitchen with my pants around my ankles."

 

He huffs out a laugh but doesn't argue, pulling his pants up enough so he doesn't trip as he follows her to her bedroom.

 

At this point in their relationship, he's not even sure why she still has her own room. His room is bigger and the bed is roomier, and the light from the sun doesn't shine through the blinds as brightly as it does in hers. She could move in tonight if she wanted, and he'd have absolutely no issue with that. But she hadn't brought it up and he didn't want to seem pushy, so he never asked.

 

She shucks off her work slacks and dress shoes and crawls over her messy bed, sheets still strewn from the morning and pillows askew. It was odd; he'd caught her asleep a myriad of times-mostly when she'd asked him to wake her up on early mornings and he had to tap on the door and rouse her from sleep-and he'd noticed that she slept like the devil, all wild and this way and that way. But in bed with him, curled up against his side or tucked under his chin, she slept deep and still, peaceful, as if his touch was the missing ingredient to a good night's rest. It warmed him to think that just maybe it was. His lips curl at the thought.

 

And then the blood in his body rushes to his cock because she's grabbing pillows to stuff beneath her and she's got her thighs spread for him, lying on her belly, her arse high in the air, her hair slung haphazardly over her shoulder as she glances to him.

 

"You gonna come fuck me or nah?" she asks, her voice a dirty, devious rasp and it takes him a record few seconds to strip bare, to line himself up to her entrance, and then press home slowly.

 

Always slow, always.

 

Just like it usually does, her back arches like a cat and she groans at being filled and stretched, little ripples of contractions stroking his cock when she sucks in a deep breath. She feels so good, so perfect and she looks good too. He's told her before that her cunt was probably the prettiest he's seen, and she'd blushed, head to foot though she swears she can't beneath her dark skin.

 

But she can. It's a gorgeous blush she has, and it illuminates the brown of her flesh beautifully. He takes a second to gather his bearings once more and leans forward then, biting down on the lushness of her hip, sliding his hands up to grasp her breasts as he starts a deep, thorough pace.

 

There are no words right then, as there usually never is. She almost always gets lost in the feel of their joining, her breath rushed and panting and her fingers clutching the bed sheets, but nothing falls from her mouth except the occasional sigh and whimper. And as much as he loves how she sounds when she's in the throes of pleasure, he enjoys this silence too. It's incredibly intimate and pure, just the two of them chasing ecstasy and enjoying each other and there's no need for words when all she has to do is touch, turn her head, meet his mouth and kiss him heatedly. He knows she's enjoying this; he knows she's savoring every little bit of him, of his hands that slide softly across her body and thread through the thick curls at her scalp. All she needs is his touch and his lovemaking, his words not truly needed until the very end when she's about to cum.

 

And she's been worked up most of the day, he can tell, because she's already surprisingly close.

 

The more they make love (and they have so many times now he has lost count sometime back in June) the easier it is to get her to let go and clear her mind and just allow him to pleasure her. There'd been nights and a few mornings and that one time out on the patio where her brain had been on the other side of the world somewhere, even though he'd been doing his best to distract her from whatever ailed her at the time. And she'd teared up and apologized for not simply being in the moment, perhaps whatever nervousness she'd felt by allowing him to see her naked and touch her such flaring up at the most inopportune moments.

 

But with time and some patience, he'd managed to convince her with his almost steady assurances that she was desirable, that he did find her attractive and that no, this wasn't a last resort or a pity fuck or anything else she could possibly think of. That had angered him so much he'd been surprised at how how long it’d taken him to calm down; the idea that one of those idiots who'd been honored to even so much as grace her bed had told her she was just something to do until he found better lighting his temper like gasoline and a match.

 

The only thing standing between Loki's hands and that cretin's neck was the fact that he couldn't leave the country yet and her past lover was somewhere stationed in Japan. Otherwise, he'd probably have at least bruised the man's esophagus enough that he'd never be able to tell another woman anything so stupid.

 

But that man would never touch Mel again and Loki was currently showering her shoulders with kisses, pushing her deep into the pillows that kept her hips lifted for him. She kept her head bowed and her mouth open just a bit, soft moans pouring from her lips with mingled, whispered cants of his name.

 

"Loki..." she murmurs, her voice quiet but tremulous and he knew she was close enough to cum now. It wouldn't be nearly as explosive as the morning had been, but it would be good and that was all he wanted. He wanted her to feel good.

 

"I've got you, darling," he says. He pushes faster, a little harder, but not too much or she’ll lose the pleasure that’s wound up inside her and then, with a few more snaps of his hips, she cums. Her body stiffens, her mouth opens in a sharp cry and she gives the most beautiful of gasps as he pulls her up and close to his heart, his arms wrapped around her chest so he can feel her heart beating. He strokes her through her orgasm and kisses her tenderly, purring words of encouragement in her ear when she moans out that she’s cumming again. And she does, just as intensely, her eyes rolling into the back of her skull and her body trembling as it washes over her.

 

She’s a panting, lazy wreck when she collapses back into the bed. When he moves to pull out, the slickness of her sweet cunt slips against her ass when his cock, still hard and heavy, pushes across it. It’s an insanely erotic picture. And Loki is perfectly fine with finishing on his own, so he grasps himself in hand, giving two slow strokes but when he does, she whines in protest.

 

“No,” she whispers, her voice needy and her eyes heavy and dark as she turns over and pulls him down to her. “I want you to cum inside me, okay?”

 

The words stir something so hot inside him that he can’t help pushing her thighs wide and then thrusts deep inside again and he takes her, fast and a little harder than he’d intended. He’s so close, so close, and she’s so tight, and so wet. And she reaches up to thread her fingers into his hair, wraps her long legs around his waist and clenches around him and he can’t hold back any longer, though he isn’t sure if he’d been trying. Pressure so deep it’s almost painful bursts from his cock and all the way to the tips of his toes and he nearly shouts her name to the heavens, his hips jerking as she milks every drop of him, until he bows his head to her shoulder and collapses onto her chest in a breathless heap.

 

For a long moment, he’s only aware of the thump of their hearts and the rush of his breath across her skin, until she grunts and wiggles a bit underneath him and he remembers how heavy he is. So he scoots over, withdrawing much to his chagrin. He wishes he could stay inside her forever. He wishes he could spend all his life deep inside her, kissing her and telling her how good she feels and touching her until their bodies meld and she’s so certain of how absolutely perfect and beautiful she is that she’ll never doubt it ever again.

 

He gets awfully sappy when he’s cum, he muses, but it’s a nice change from the usual, angst filled recollections of his difficult past that he thinks up before he can sleep or during the hours she’s gone to work and he’s left alone.

 

“Mmm I’m hungry,” she murmurs, eyes blinking in the waning light. It’s nice and warm in the room, but he knows she’s good and cool still pressed against him. He wonders if she’ll object to him walking about the house naked. It’s so freeing to just flop on the couch and watch television in the nude.

 

“What shall we eat, then?” he asks, mouth still close to her neck and she giggles a bit as his cool breath tickles her. “I’ve finished all the leftovers from the night before for lunch.”

 

Mel stretches best she can while he’s lounging beside her and presses a palm to his cheek, then turns his head so she meet his eyes. She looks so very sated and lovely. He can’t help but smile and kiss her fingers.

 

“We can run to Toledo Town and get pizza pockets. I ain’t cookin’.”

 

“Can we get frozen daiquiris too?” he asks, because though the alcohol has little to no effect on him, he’s got a taste for a peach and strawberry margarita, extra shot of tequila, extra salt. She nods her head and he rolls over to let her slowly move out of the bed, her skin still flushed from their lovemaking. And he watches her head into the bathroom with his heart so full, he thinks it’ll burst.

 


	2. Chapter 2

They eat their pizza pockets in the car, in the parking lot of Toledo Town and Tackle, right before Mel decides she’ll take the twenty minute ride into town and actually get another crock pot. 

 

“I can’t afford two, not if I’m going to do four roasts.”

 

“You don’t need to afford another one period,” he grumbles, because he’d insisted she just buy the groceries and he’d take care of the cooking ware. But she’s as stubborn as he could be, so he sits in the passenger seat, pizza sauce still on his fingers and the taste of blue Powerade on his tongue. They haven’t gotten their daiquiris yet; she says she’ll get them on the way home. 

 

Loki thinks maybe she’ll need a 44 ounce instead of a 32 ounce now. 

 

Mel ignores his obvious pouting and wipes her hands of grease, before putting the car in drive. She barely makes it to the end of the parking lot before she suddenly stops, claps her hands, and shoots him a grin. He doesn’t know what the look in her eye is, except that she’s half mad and a bit antsy and it’s starting to scare him a bit. He wonders how many more orgasms she’d need to just calm down and act like her usual, but he also wonders if maybe she’s on the cusp of something that needs to happen, so he dismisses the thought. It’s a little rude to assume he can fix whatever is going on in her head if he just fucks her enough.

 

“Wanna drive?” she asks, almost as if she’s afraid he’ll say no. And she should know he’d say yes, simply because he’d been begging her for the last few months to let him drive anywhere but up her road to the stop sign and back. He knows how to drive just fine, he’d told her, but she’d been staunch on not allowing anyone behind the wheel of her car.

 

“I uh...are you feeling alright?” he asks, because she’s grinning as if she’d just won the lottery or a chocolate cake and it’s worrying. She never grins like this, at least not after work and not when she’s tired and not when there’s a dinner, daunting and tiring, ahead of her.

 

“I’m fine,” she says, breathy and a little high pitched and it’s not her, it’s not right. But she keeps smiling and he figures that if he’s going to get her to quit that (it’s unnerving him now), maybe he should play along with whatever she’s doing.

 

“Alright. I...sure. Yes. I’ll drive.”

 

He does. It’s not as smooth as she drives, not nearly as fast, because the roads are still a hazard in his opinion and every pothole and bump he hits makes him wince, but he does just fine. He sticks to the speed limit and double checks the mirrors and makes sure his hands are steady on the steering wheel.

 

And Mel hangs out the passenger window with her eyes closed and her hair down and she’s so remarkably beautiful, it’s breathtaking.

 

But she’s also climbing a dangerous, craggy precipice, he can tell. He has no idea how he knows this except he’s done something similar before and the fallout was not pretty. He doesn’t want that for her. He wants her to be well, to be happy, to be safe and sane and not in a pit of darkness and despair like he’d been. He thinks perhaps that he should chat Brun that evening after his daiquiri and ask her advice on the whole thing. She’s bound to have some sort of insight.

 

He saves the idea of that for later and keeps his eyes mostly on the road, though it’s so hard to when his girlfriend is drifting around in the breeze like she hasn’t a care in the world. She mouths along to the song that plays, fingers riding the air that pushes back and forth across the silver car. And he wishes whatever she’s doing would work because as lovely as she looks, this isn’t genuine. It’s a desperate attempt to keep control.

 

They make it to Walmart almost too soon, walk down the appliance aisles and search for a crock pot cheap enough that it won’t break the bank. Not for first time does Loki wonder if he could possibly just sneak off and get a real job anyway; there’s no shortage of fishermen in the area that would hire him for menial tasks and it’d be extra money. So what if it were against the terms of his imprisonment? He didn’t care one way or another if it would help Mel. She was under so much stress, the least he could do wasn’t becoming enough.

 

“This one’s only fifteen bucks,” she says, kneeling with a grunt. She slips the box from the shelf and brushes off a bit of dust that had collected there. “Clearance, even.” She turns it over and reads the features and then sighs. “There’s probably something wrong with it for that cheap.”

 

“How much should they cost?” he asks, because he sees one that looks a lot like the two she already has. But that one is nearly triple what the clearanced one costs and probably a bit too steep at the moment. 

 

“Depends. The ones I have were on sale. I got both at Black Friday two years ago for twenty a pop.” She taps on a slow cooker right beside the one he’d been looking at, and he sucks in a breath at seeing it was normally 60 dollars. “I got a really good deal on those.”

 

“You’ll either have to splurge on that one,” he begins, and she groans. “Or, you’ll have to settle for something with less controls.” 

 

Loki lets his fingers tiptoe down the rows of slow cookers until he finds one that’s 32 dollars. He picks it up and tilts his head, reading the list of features. He doesn’t know of any of this will do a bit of good in making sure the food is delicious; he just knows that a cheap one won’t work very well and make her even more frustrated if one roast is more done than the other. 

 

“That might work,” she says in a quiet, thoughtful voice. She takes the box from the shelf, reads it over twice, and then with a sigh, shrugs and puts it in the cart. “It’ll have to. But I can only get one. Which means we’ll have to start one roast tonight and put it in the fridge and then put that one in the oven the day of.”

 

“I’m sure your sister would let you borrow one of hers, no?”

 

Mel blinks. “I...fuck, I hadn’t thought of that.”

 

Loki smiles, expecting her to smack him and laugh but she shakes her head as if she wants to sink into the floor and his smile drops. “Darling?”

 

“I’ll ask her, then. I’ll uh...I think she has a few crock pots actually, so.”

 

She walks off, presumably toward the meat department and pulls out her phone, presumably to text her sister, but she doesn’t say any of this. And Loki stands in the aisle with a crock pot in the shopping cart, unsure if he should put it back or leave it be. He decides to keep it just in case and follows her over toward the roasts.

 

“She said I could use her two, and then she sent me this,” she says, her voice still tight and quiet and unlike her at all. He glimpses at the text, a three paragraph long spiel, no doubt about her sister’s estrangement from their parents and Mel shakes her head, turns it too quickly for him to really see, but he thinks there’s tears in her eyes. Walmart probably isn’t the place to ask after her wellbeing, especially not as they’re standing beside people looking for hamburger and steaks, so he doesn’t. But he decides he can at least leave her with the cart and then carry the crockpot back over to the place they’d gotten it from. They’ll have to drive out to her sister’s and get the appliances and then perhaps they can get their drinks and if she’ll allow him, he’ll run her a bath and give her a massage. He’s good with his hands. She’d told him so.

 

“I’m going to go take this back, then,” he informs her, and she shrugs, her eyes still on the roasts and how expensive they are. He pulls her close, no matter the people looking at them, and kisses her temple. And for just a second she stills, then sighs, this one different, a little softer. When she opens her eyes, there’s a hint of a smile on the corner of her mouth, but when she turns back around to look at the meat again, he notices how stiff her shoulders get.

 

And then he looks at the woman glaring at the two of them and realizes something he hadn’t paid all that much attention to before.

 

She doesn’t approve, whoever this woman is, of them together or maybe just him in general, and it’s making his Mel tense and cagey because she grumbles something about just heading to Brookshire’s instead. Loki keeps his gaze on the woman, his head high and his jaw tight. And he dares her to say a word, but she never does. She scoffs and turns instead, grumbling something under her breath that he knows, or hopes, that Mel can’t hear.

 

He can. 

 

And the word she says makes his blood boil, especially now that he knows what that word means.

 

“It ain’t the same thing,” she’d told him, “but just imagine the worst thing somebody could call the Jotnar and have someone call you that to your face or behind your back and often, and there ain’t shit you can do about it cause you’ll get blamed for it.” She’d been seething, talking about the slur she’d be called at work that day and there had been tears in her eyes then, but those were angry and vicious tears that he could work with. He couldn’t handle the sad ones, the expression on her face now so broken that all he wanted right then was to tear the entire fucking store down and make that bitch grovel at his darling’s feet.

 

All the therapy he’d received before coming to Louisiana had to be dredged up, as were the faces of his mother and her stark disapproval of getting himself in any more trouble, or even worse, Mel. He settles for clenching the handle of the cart so hard he bends it as the woman scoots away with a pale face and trembling hands. Mel watches him with an open mouth and glassy eyes. He takes her keys from her hand and leaves the cart in the middle of the meat department, and leads her out to her Focus so he can drive her home.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s your sister’s phone number?” he asks, halfway home, speeding for once because she needs something stronger than a margarita. She needs some of that moonshine she’s got above her counters. He’d suggest some of Brun’s special brew, but even Thor has a bit of a problem handling some of that stuff and he wants Mel to relax, not go into a coma. But he figures it won’t hurt to ask her to bring some when he invites them to dinner tomorrow. He’s certain she’d love to share a bit.

 

“Uh...shit. I don’t know.” She wipes her face in the dark of the car and hands him her phone. “Just scroll around through there until you find it. Or call her on my phone, I don’t know why you need-”

 

“Is she home?”

 

Mel blinks and they pass a street light and he can see the tear tracks on her face. He opts to not mention it.

 

“Yeah. She said she’d be home tonight so I can get the crockpots.” 

 

“Good.” He stops at the four way, allows the other vehicles waiting to make their turns and then hits a sharp left, making Mel squeal. 

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Going to your sister’s.”

 

“You don’t have to do that right now, you can go home. I can go out there and get all that in the morning.”

 

He shoots her a look that tells her not to argue, to just keep quiet and for once, she swallows and understands his look and keeps mum. He doesn’t like looking at her like that, but she’s going to give herself a stroke if she doesn’t just be quiet and let him take care of things for once. She’s so damned determined to do this alone and she doesn’t have to. 

 

The ride to her sister’s house takes nearly thirty minutes this way but it’s a beautiful, scenic route, even in the dark. He’s careful around the curves, sharp as they are, and even more careful to watch for stray deer or animals that might run out into the mostly deserted highway. Mel doesn’t say a word the entire ride, doesn’t even bother to pull the phone back to her and change the song that plays. 

 

About five minutes before he makes it to her sister’s, according to the gps, he gives her a call, the phone ringing four times before he hears a voice pick up.

 

“Hey doll. Wassup?”

 

“I assume Mel has asked after the slow cookers?”

 

There’s a pause on the other end and then a snort and a laugh. It’s raspy and there’s a thick drawl to her words when she speaks. “Uh huh. How the hell she let you use her phone, Loki? She barely lets anyone even look at her pictures. Probably got nudes on that thing.”

 

Loki can’t suppress a grin, though he’s worried because Mel doesn’t even react. She turns her head further out the window and readjusts the hand beneath her chin.

 

“I simply took it,” he tells her, and slows as he approaches a railroad track. He specifically remembers to do that from the videos he’d watched on driver’s safety. 

 

“You’re a bold one.” Renee grunts and he assume she’s getting up from bed, where she’s undoubtedly watching another of her television shows. It’s one of the things he and she has in common. They can spend hours binging shows, and their shared interest was Law and Order. “I never touch that child’s phone if I don’t have permission. She nearly chewed my fingers off when I did that.”

 

“Did not,” Mel mutters, but it’s so much better than the silence and Loki feels a little bit of relief thrum through him. Maybe an evening at Renee’s would cheer her up, if only for a little while. 

 

“Yeah ya did!” Renee says, laughing over the phone. “Look, if ya’ll are comin’-”

 

“We’re practically in the yard, Duck,” Mel says, shifting around in the passenger seat and coming alive for the first time since they’d left the Walmart. “Put a bra on or somethin’.”

 

* * *

 

 

Renee is, from what Loki gathers of her, a free spirit and a handful all at the same time. From what Mel’s told him, she’s a lot like their mother, only more blunt and not nearly as conservative. But the attitude? All Jean. The quirk of her lips when she found something both hilarious and absolutely ridiculous? Jean, made over. Of course, Mel also insisted that Renee was her own person and that there were aspects of her personality that completely balanced out the penchant for dramatics and the sometimes blunt honesty. She was incredibly protective of her siblings and would do anything for Mel. Loki loved her the second he’d met her, even though she’d taken one look at him and raised her eyebrows, wondering where the “skinny ass white boy” had come from.

 

Renee was also beautiful, in a sort of laid back way, the kind of beauty who knew she was and didn’t give a good goddamn if you didn’t like that confidence. Loki found that quality very attractive, had found it attractive in Brun when he’d met her, and Renee reminded him so much of his warrior friend. But what she had in beauty she seemed to trade in for the almost boundless, endless imagination and wonder that lived in Mel. And that made all the difference.

 

When he thought about it, the two of them were much like he and Thor in that they didn’t resemble each other at all, but the kinship could be felt. He’d even asked if either of them, too, had been adopted, but as it turned out, they simply shared different fathers. It was a wonder what paternity could do for looks. Renee was taller, curvier, with smooth butterscotch skin and plush lips set in a heart shaped face. His Mel was her opposite, her skin the brown of the sugar she put in her molasses cookies, her face more oval and her eyes almond where Renee’s were round. Mel was the spitting image of her father where Renee resembled their mother quite a lot, though she apparently was a healthy mix of both her biological parents. And then Mel’s other sister Shanice, older and 700 miles east, was their mother’s twin, only she was the same brown as Mel and not as tall.

 

The sisters were all varied, but all stunning. Hell, their baby brother was a startling handsome young man, even if baby fat still clung to his youthful face. Loki knew once he hit his prime, he’d be a force to be reckoned with. It was a good looking family, by Loki’s standards, and he’d seen quite a lot of people and persons in his life.

 

Loki pulls into Renee’s driveway with a smoothness to his turn that surprises even himself. He’d been doing so well with the driving all day, though that journey from Walmart had started with his entire body heated with rage. He could only imagine how red Renee’s face was going to be when he told her what happened. He looks over to Mel and is satisfied to see she’s mostly herself, not quite as perky as he’d like, but not the droll, half alive look he’d seen half an hour ago. “Do you think she’s got anything for us to eat?” he asks, because he’s hungry again and Renee is an excellent cook.

 

“Probably got chicken spaghetti in the fridge. If not, trust me, she’ll fix you something.” Mel smiles, the light not quite in her eyes, but it’s better than nothing. “She likes you.”

 

“Oh, that’s a relief. I’d hate to be on her bad side.” 

 

Mel snorts something like a laugh and knocks on the door once, twice, and then three times, a sharp little pattern so Renee knows it’s them. 

 

“Hold on!”

 

There’s the sound of footsteps and music playing so Loki guesses she’s up and after it today. No television, then. Maybe she’d been trying to clean the house or something. He wasn’t sure where exactly the women had gotten their habit of playing music while cleaning, but he had to admit it made the chore a lot easier. 

 

“Hey, Duck,” Mel greets, more subdued than usual. Renee, ever perceptive, picks it up immediately. 

 

“The hell is wrong with you?” she asks, frowning, but Loki knows it has nothing to do with Mel, and everything to do with her mood. She shoots a glare at Loki, but he holds up his hands in a sign of surrender. 

 

“T’wasn’t I,” he insists, almost offended. “I’m shocked you’d even think such a thing.”

 

“Yeah, well, men suck,” Renee declares, shrugging. “I’m just making sure.”

 

Loki frowns but tries hard not to take it to heart. He’s aware of how shitty Midgardian men could be. But he wasn’t Midgardian. “You’ll have to remember I’m not really what you’d consider a man.”

 

“Aight. So, anyway, all you _males_ suck.”

 

He almost opens his mouth and tells her he could also be female, if that would soothe her, but Mel’s eyes tell him to keep mum for the time being. He doesn’t imagine that Renee would think any worse of him for also being a _her_ occasionally, but still. It was a precarious kind of thing to tell someone in this little town, no matter how open minded anyone was.

 

“Ah well. There are no men-or males-like me,” he declares and when Renee grins, she returns it so he figures all is well. Mel is already seated at the small island when he finally clears the threshold, so he joins her, slipping onto one of the tall bar stools with practiced ease. The first time he’d ever sat on this thing, he’d fallen clear off of it, putting a dent into the floor and making Renee howl with laughter. He thinks maybe it’s why she likes him now. 

 

“So. What’s going on with you?”

 

Renee all but ignores him at first to focus on her sister and he’s perfectly fine with that. He’d come out here mostly for her, and of course, for Crock Pots. 

 

“Nothing.”

 

“You’re a whole ass lie, is what you is.” She snorts and takes a swig of beer, glancing to Loki for any information. “What’d happen? Who do I need to cut?”

 

He turns to look at Mel, but she keeps her eyes down on the island and doesn’t protest. So he starts with the experience at Walmart, sure not to leave a single detail out. The longer he talks, the redder Renee gets and the redder she gets, the wider her eyes are. She’s so angry by the time he stops talking, and he is too, that he thinks she could breathe fire.

 

“What’d she look like?”

 

Mel groans, waving her hands in front of her helplessly. She’s sandwiched between two very protective people who would probably slaughter an army on her behalf and he knows the feeling has to be a bit overwhelming, but he can’t help it. He’s got it bad and he doesn’t care right now if she’s upset about it. 

 

“Ah, well, she was-”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Mel butts in, daring him to keep rambling. And for the first time, he takes that dare, ignoring how she whimpers and smacks her head into the island.

 

“Short. Rather thin. She had a very pinched look on her face and short, blonde hair. You know the shade, they call it...ah, dirty blonde?”

 

“Does she wear glasses?”

 

“Yes! And she wore garish red lipstick that didn’t suit her at all. I’m not sure what lips she had to wear lipstick on, to begin with but-”

 

“I know exactly who you’re talkin’ about, then.”

 

“Nope,” Mel cuts in again, though it doesn’t do much good. “No, you do not.”

 

But Loki has a feeling Mel knew the woman was and probably saw her often and that based on his simple description, Renee was familiar with her as well.

 

“Was it Betty Clark, doll?”

 

When Mel doesn’t respond, except for a tired exhalation, Renee gives a loud hoot and then pulls out her phone. Mel’s eyes shot up, almost terrified and she smacks her sister’s hand, shocking the older sibling.

 

“What are you-”

 

“Don’t!”

 

“What do you mean, don’t? She called you-”

 

“I don’t care anymore, Duck, I promise, I don’t...it’s not even that serious, it was-”

 

Renee’s face hardens, though Loki knows it’s toward the situation and not toward her sister. And what she says next resonates with him so much he can’t help but nod along.

 

“She didn’t just call you out your name, love. She called you a _nigger_. She used the hard r. I mean, shit, any use by anybody that ain’t us is bad.” She shoots a look to Loki and he nods his understanding. He won’t ever say that word, even at the threat of death. “But there is no excusing that shit. And to say that just cause you’re with Loki? Fucking racist ass bitch.”

 

Renee snarls and picks her phone up once again. “I’ma text LisaAnne. She knows where that heffa works.”

 

“So? It’s better to leave it alone,” Mel protests, weakly. “It’s not going to help a damn thing by making her miserable. She’ll know I told you and she’ll make my life hell!”

 

“How?” Renee asks, incredulous. “Is she gonna cuss you to death? Is that wonky eye of hers gonna cast some sorta evil into you or something?”

 

Loki smothers the chuckle that threatens to burst from his throat by covering his hand but Mel shakes her head, and when he realizes she’s on the verge of tears again, he stalls. 

 

“Perhaps it’s not the best idea,” he tries, but Renee is already texting her friend and Mel chokes out a sob. 

 

“She comes in the office,” she finally says, a last ditch effort to keep Renee from doing any more damage. “She’ll come in and lie and tell Francine I did this or that and you know they won’t fact check cause of her last name.”

 

Renee finally does hold still, her phone in hand but her fingers unmoving, and she presses her mouth into a line before she sighs, deletes what she’d typed, and puts her device on the counter. 

 

“Fine.”

 

“You won’t make this worse?”

 

Renee blows out a long suffering exhale. “As much as I want to, no.” She glances to Loki then, her eyes just as intense and he squirms a little under the gaze of them. That’s another thing she’s got in common with Brun. He then wonders if maybe they should invite her sister to the dinner, too. That would be a sight. “I’ll leave it alone. But look, if she gives you anymore trouble, I’m comin’ up there personally to whip her ass. Swear to god. I know folks at the detention center, I can wiggle my way out of an arrest.”

 

“And if all else fails, I’m certain I can cause some sort of diversion,” Loki adds, grinning when Renee nods along conspiratorially. He’s already thinking of what kind of havoc he can wreak for the miserable woman when Mel slaps her hand on the counter and growls.

 

“No. Neither of you are gonna do a goddamn thing! Nothing! I mean that.”

 

She’s almost screeching and her shoulders shake and Renee’s face falls in concern.

 

“Doll...I’m sorry. Okay?” She places a hand tentatively on her sister’s shoulder and pulls her close, letting her suck in deep breath after deep breath. And after a little time, she finally calms enough that she no longer trembles.

 

“Okay.” Mel sniffles and nods, though she looks like she doesn’t quite believe either of them. Loki thinks it might be the smartest thing to not because he’s still itching to cause some trouble. He won’t give it away that he’s still planning to give Betty Clark an outbreak of the worst skin disease he can think of that won’t kill her, though. He can keep that to himself.

 

“Are you hungry?” Renee asks, for lack of anything else to say in the still tense silence and Mel shrugs, though Loki nearly jumps off the bar stool to follow her sister to the fridge. 

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

Renee pulls out two large pans, one of chicken spaghetti, the other of Mexican chicken. He takes two large helpings of both, puts his overloaded plate into the microwave and watches the food spin round and round as it heats. The silence is still a bit stifling, no one talking and no more music playing in the background, so he starts to hum to himself. He’s not comfortable with this kind of silence. It makes him antsy and itchy and makes his skin prickle with anxiety.

 

So he starts conversation with Renee about a little of anything, which is wonderful because she wants to talk television and he’s caught up on their mutual shows. Mel mostly picks at her chicken spaghetti in the background, not bothering to butt in and add her own little tidbits about the characters and the plot. She rarely watched anything, always claimed she didn’t have the attention span for it. So he keeps an eye on her as he chats and eats seconds and thirds, washing it all down with the weak Miller Lite he was given. 

 

Sometime around ten, Mel’s yawning prompts Renee to usher them out her door and home. “Make sure you tell me all about this little dinner ya’ll are having,” she says with a bitter smirk. “I wanna know every detail.”

 

Mel lifts a hand and murmurs something like an okay, accepting the hug her sister gives albeit half heartedly. If Renee notices, she doesn’t mention it. She playfully nudges Loki out the door as well and the two of them are left on her doorstep in the dark, hot night air making him sweat and the sound of cicadas oddly comforting. Or, it would be, if Mel would quit looking like that.

 

“Darling.”

 

She glances up, and there’s that same something in her eye from earlier that terrifies him but it passes so soon he thinks he might have imagined it. He hadn’t imagined it at the gas station, he knows, but he can’t be sure in the dark of the night. 

 

“Hmm?”

 

Loki reaches forward and brushes a cool fingertip across her cheek, watching her face for any kind of reaction except the odd withdrawn expression she had been nursing for hours. “Did the incident at the grocer hurt you more than you’re telling me?” He pauses for a second and amends his question. “No, no, I’m aware it did. I suppose I should ask, why didn’t you admit it has hurt you so much to your sister and I?”

 

Mel doesn’t say a word at first. She grabs the keys out his hands and walks stiffly to the car, sliding into the front seat and starting the engine as if he hadn’t asked her anything at all. And he feels like a jerk for pushing this, but he remembers something his therapist had done with him, something that required some pushing and prodding and wasn’t comfortable at all but had helped quite a lot. He follows her to the car and gets into his usual spot in the passenger seat. Maybe she’d gotten tired of his too sharp turns to let him drive home.

 

“Mel.”

 

“You would think,” she says, as she buckles in, “that at my age I’d get used to hearing someone call me that.”

 

Loki kept his mouth shut, a feat of no small measure, but for her, he could manage. Sensing that he wasn’t going to interrupt, she continues, although her speech is halting and unsure at first.

 

“I’ve been called that at work. At school. By white people and Mexicans and the Asian lady at the nail shop when I asked her to stop insulting my cuticles. I’ve been called that on anonymous messages online, through text from an ex friend who was pissed I wouldn’t sleep with him, from my ex best friend who was pissed I told her her new boyfriend was a piece of shit. It shouldn’t even bother me now.” She shakes her head and lets out a watery laugh, and though he wants to so badly it aches, he doesn’t reach to hold her hand. If she wants his touch, he knows she’d ask for it. But when she looks up at him like that, he has to physically restrain himself from pulling her out the seat and into his lap so he can stroke her skin and kiss her brow, her temple, her cheeks, the salt of the tears that were now slipping down them salty and hot. She was angry; but there was so much sadness there too. And all over a word.

 

Oh, but words had so much power behind them. And there wasn’t much quite like being called something that was meant to break you down until you were no longer a person, just a thing to be ridiculed and hated. He knew that feeling, even if the circumstances were different, even if the words weren’t the same. What was the equivalent of being called _that_ word that he knew of for someone like himself?

 

“Loki, why does it still bother me? Why?”

 

He shakes his head. He doesn’t quite have the answer for that. He’s never been called that, he’s only just learned what it meant and why it hurt her so, and he knows he’ll never grasp the full spectrum of emotions behind it. But he knows even then that just because she’s heard it many times that it would never lose the power to damage. That what was why it still bothered her. 

 

“You are allowed to be hurt by things that were created to hurt you. And there isn’t any amount of application or time factored that will be able to erase that.” 

 

She shrugs, snorting back her tears and wiping her face angrily. She sucks in breath after breath, trying so hard to stop crying and he hates that she does this. She hates crying, she hates looking weak and emotional in front of him or anyone, really. He knows she even hates that she cries in private, because she’d been ridiculed and mocked for it before. And he knows how that feels completely. So he doesn’t offer to wipe her tears. Instead, he allows her to gather her wits, or what she’s got left of them, and hold her head as high as she can as she pulls out of her sister’s driveway.

 

When they get home, she heads straight for her room and locks the door, and though he listens for the sound of her shower, he hears nothing. There’s nothing but the cicadas, the waves outside his window, and the stifling, almost overwhelming feeling that something was going to give, and soon.

 

* * *

 

 

Something does give, but it’s Sunday before it does.

 

They spend all day Saturday cooking, using Renee’s crockpots and two more that Loki got from the store that morning. He’d taken her car into town when she asked for more yellow onions and spent most of the little money he’d squirreled away from his stipend to buy her two decent crockpots so they’d have six roasts instead of four. He also sent a text to Thor, asking him to dinner the next afternoon about four o’clock. When his brother responds, it’s in the form of a short video, his face smiling and crinkling in mirth. 

 

“Shall I bring along a guest or two?” he asks, and Loki decides to play this game. He records his own video.

 

“Whichever girlfriend you feel comfortable bringing along, or both, if that’s how the three of you work.”

 

Thor’s reaction is a laughing emoji, and that pretty much confirms what he’d thought about the entire Thor and Brun and Sif situation. It was a threesome, then. He’d normally be jealous, solely based on his past position as “more is better” when it came to lovers, but he thinks about trying to share Mel with anyone and embraces his new stance on monogamy. He glances toward her through the glass as he stands on the deck and watches as she putters about the kitchen, the spring in her step missing and that same sullen look on her face. 

 

His phone vibrates then, and he realizes Thor is actually FaceTiming him for once and he nearly fumbles with the phone to pick it up. When he finally does, he gets an eyeful of white teeth and a grin so wide it could span the ocean. And though he pretends that it doesn’t, it warms his little heart so much.

 

“Brother!” Thor exclaims, in a far more perky mood than he had been in a long while. “How goes it?”

 

“I should be asking you a similar question, actually.” Loki smirks and sits in the patio chair, crossing his legs and squinting in the hot sun. “You seem in an awfully good mood for a king too busy to talk to his brother.”

 

“Oh come now, you know I’d never neglect you on purpose.”

 

“Mmhm. That was father’s job. You’ve already done a far better one of being king than he had, I’ll give you that.”

 

Thor snorts out something like a laugh and shakes his head while scratching his beard. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But enough about all that. Tell me about this dinner.”

 

“Just a little something Mel is cooking for her family. Her parents and brother will be attending and I have a feeling it will be a bit...stressful.”

 

Thor hums in understanding. “Are her parents difficult?”

 

Loki shrugs. “I’ve yet to meet them, so I cannot truly say, but I’m gathering that they are. She doesn’t talk about that part much, unfortunately.” He sighs and leans back in the chair. “I’m actually a bit worried about her, Thor. And I thought perhaps if she had Brun or Sif here to talk to, she’d not be in such a mood.”

 

“A mood?”

 

“I hate to reduce it to that. It’s more than that, but-”

 

“Oh.” Thor nods and clears his throat. “Well. How about this-I’ll ask both of them if they’d like to accompany me and leave the throne in Heim’s care.”

 

“Or you could bring him along as well. I think she’d like to meet him. He’s got a way about him.”

 

“Oh, so now you’re admitting that Heim isn’t the nosy spoilsport you thought he was when we were children?”

 

Loki gave a soft laugh and shook his head. “I’m reconsidering my stance on just about everything right now,” he admits and then he wonders if perhaps he could actually talk to his brother about his feelings without it being weird. They didn’t talk, not like that. The one person he really confided in was Brun and he’d talked about Mel enough to her that she was probably tired of hearing about it. But she hadn't heard about this newer development. It’d been a while since he’d gotten to say more to his friend than hello or send her funny pictures via instant messenger. 

 

Before he could decide to not say anything about this to his brother, Thor was calling Sif over to the phone to say her hellos.

 

“Are you faring well, Loki?” she asks, smiling as she slips into Thor’s lap. Loki smirks, certain it was a fairly common thing the two of them did and that she wasn’t even aware he’d noticed. “You look as though you’ve put on a bit of weight!”

 

He shrugs. “I’ve been eating well, so I suppose that I’m doing just fine. You know, it’s like Eir always told us-”

 

“Half of your health is your appetite,” Sif finishes, laughing. “Ah, I miss the old bat. She’s a riot.” Eir, the old royal healer, was Sif’s great aunt and had been a bit of a hardass growing up, but Loki remembered her quite fondly.

 

“Is she enjoying her travels around the galaxy that you know of?”

 

Sif snorts, quite unbecoming for a queen to be, although Loki was still uncertain if she’d be queen or if it would be Brun. Or perhaps, Thor would buck the rules and make them both queen. He would give just about anything to see how that would fly over with some of the older gentry still living in the New Asgardian settlement. 

 

“Oh, she’s having the time of her life. Retirement has done wonders for her.”

 

The three of them talk for a few minutes more before Thor brings up the matter about the dinner, his hand wrapped about Sif’s waist as she slides long fingers through his cropped hair. It’s a picture of romantic bliss, the two of them so well suited that Loki couldn’t help but smile. And then he heard heavy footsteps and a raucous laugh just as Sif mulled over what she could wear to a dinner in the States. 

 

“Just the woman I wanted to see!” he says, laughing when Brun too plops down on Thor’s lap, her arrival a little less gentle although to his brother’s credit, he takes the extra weight in stride. And it’s then that Loki knows; this is how they are, the three of them. They’re all lovers. Neither woman were sharing the king, they were sharing with each other.

 

He decides, though Mel is more than enough, he still is a wee bit jealous, if only for past Loki.

 

“What’s this I hear about a dinner, yeah?”

 

“Tomorrow afternoon. We’re making roast.”

 

“Oh gods, yes, we’re going. Aren’t we?” 

 

Sif nods. “I’m still trying to decide what to wear. Should I go full shield maiden or tone it down a little and do a tunic and a good pair of breeches?”

 

Brun shrugs. “I’m actually considering a pair of jeans and a shirt. You know, they’re not that bad, darling. Jeans, that is. I wear Thor’s all the time.”

 

Sif smiles sweetly and grasps her lover’s fingers. “You look amazing in them too, my sweet.”

 

“Oh Norns, you’re going to make my teeth rot,” Loki groans. Thor just laughs and for a second he can imagine he’s in Norway with everyone, with all his family remaining and the few friends he had instead of serving a prison sentence in hot Louisiana.

 

And then he feels horrid about thinking of it that way. 

 

He glances back toward the kitchen but it’s empty and there’s no sign of Mel in the living room either. He gets an odd feeling in his belly and turns back to his phone.

 

“I’ve got to go finish dinner. I’ll see the three of you tomorrow?”

 

“We’ll be there, brother. Heim, too! Make sure our potatoes don’t burn,” Thor says, winking his good eye. And then the screen cut out, just as Sif and Brun were giggling about something. Curious as he was about what that could be, he decided that checking on his girlfriend was probably a better option.

 

He found her in the bathroom, knees on the sink as she stares into the mirror on the wall. Her eyes were unfocused, her hands shaking as she attempted to pluck her eyebrows with one hand and balance herself with the other. Loki was afraid she’d stab herself in the eye if he moved in too noisily so he kept his steps light, just enough sound so she’d be aware of him behind her.

 

“You don’t need any help, do you?” he asks, leaning against the door frame.

 

“If you think you can get my brows under control, then yeah, c’mon.”

 

“Alright.”

 

She turns to look at him, tweezers held in limbo above her face and her mouth open in mild disbelief. “There’s no way you’re actually gonna do this,” she says, voice both disbelieving and somewhat intrigued. “You’re not gonna pluck my eyebrows for me.” She even laughs a little, but when he stands, his hands drumming along the wall and a smile on his face, she blows out a breath. “Okay then. You sure about this? Cause if you fuck my brows up-”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Mel slides over until she’s sitting on the sink and she spreads her knees to make enough room that he can wiggle right in. And even then, she keeps them closed enough that he has to fight to get through. He doesn’t mind one bit, though, because she giggles a little and her smile remains even when he takes the tweezers from her hand and tilts her head back to appraise her face and brows.

 

They’re quiet when he begins to work and she doesn’t even flinch as he starts to pluck. It’s easy; her brows are already mostly tamed, stray hairs here and there throwing things off but overall, it’s mostly just a light clean up job. Her breathing is even and steady, her legs wobbling to and fro around his hips. He pulls her closer until the warmth of her radiates across his skin. She keeps her eyes closed so brow hair doesn’t fall in them but they flicker open every so often to keep track of his hands.

 

“How many times have you done this?” she finally asks, her voice a bit on the raspy side. He wonders if her allergies are acting up again. Her voice usually starts sounding a bit croaky when they do.

 

“This would be the first.”

 

“You’re bullshitting me,” she says, a little in awe, especially when he pulls back and motions for her to turn and see what he’d done. “Holy shit, Loki. This is...you did amazing. I look half decent now!”

 

When she laughs, he thinks for a moment that maybe whatever she’d been dealing with the day before-the slur, the hard day at work, the pressure of cooking dinner for her family-had somehow disappeared. 

 

And, for a while, it does. They spend the evening eating frozen dinners so as not to have to cook anything else. The roasts are all done by ten, the potatoes ready to be roasted that next morning and Mel’s cobbler sits in the fridge, ready to be baked when the potatoes are done. 

 

It’s another quiet evening and though she doesn’t make a move to do much else but kiss him and curl up beside him on the couch, he cherishes it all the same. There was more to this whole relationship business than really good sex.

 

But something is off the next morning. Not quite enough that he can tell right away, even though he prides himself on being quite perceptive. He blames it on his own nervousness. His brother and Sif and Brun and apparently Heim, too, were due at their house around three. And there was still much to be done.

 

Mel snaps at him to clean better and faster, to put this in that closet, to stop taking so many breaks when he’d only taken two. He took as much as he could without arguing back until one too many times she’d called him lazy when he was doing all he could to help.

 

“Could you perhaps for one second stop long enough to realize that the house is already clean?!”

 

He hadn’t meant for his voice to get that loud or that hard but it had and she stares at him as if she’d seen a ghost. He almost regretted it, until she snorts and throws the broom at him. 

 

“Fine! When Jean comes in and complains about the fuckin’ floor, I’ll tell her you’re the one who wouldn’t go back and sweep it a third time.”

 

“Why the Hel do I need to sweep the floor three times?” he asks, incredulous. She was just being ridiculous now.

 

“Because I have to mop!” she screeches, her face turning red with anger. “Because my goddamn drive way is fucking rocks and mud and because the floor is filthy! And I can’t serve food in a filthy house, I swear to _god_ , I won’t ever hear the last of it if I do!”

 

He breathes in and out slowly to keep his temper down because he knows she’s stressed. But that was no reason to scream at him like that.

 

“I’m trying to help you!” he says, his voice still loud but a little more restrained. “I’m trying but you’re being an absolute bint right now and I-

 

“Oh fuck off somewhere else, then,” she growls. “I’ll do it my goddamn self.” She storms back into the kitchen and the last thing he hears before he stomps outside is the sound of the sink going.

 

Well fuck her, then, if she was going to act like an ungrateful little cretin! He’d done as much helping as he could stand and now, he was going to enjoy the rest of the hours before dinner minding his business with his earbuds in and a game of sudoku pulled up on his phone.

 

Or, at least he tries to. He can’t get over something she said that sticks with him. _I’ll never hear the end of it!_ He wonders who she was talking about and it only takes a little mental exercise before he figures it out. Her mother. She’s intimidated by her mother. With a sigh, he readjusts from his position on the patio chair and tries to ignore the little voice in his head that tells him to go inside and apologize. He wasn’t even the one in the wrong. But she needs him more than he needs his pride, so after a few games, he pulls his earbuds out and swings his legs over the chair to go inside and see if perhaps she needs any more assistance.

 

She’s done mopping, a few streaks of wet still on the wood, but otherwise, the floor is clean and the house smells like pine and mulberries. He peeks his head into the kitchen and watches as she pulls the potatoes out the oven to make room for the blackberry cobbler. And she takes the ice cream from the deep freezer and puts it into the fridge to soften a bit. He makes a mental note to remind her to put it back in the freezer above the fridge so it doesn’t completely melt. And then she turns and catches his eye and drops it just as fast, her face heating up as she tries to pretend he isn’t there.

 

Well, she’s in no mood to talk, but that’s not going to do. 

 

“Have you put the rolls in?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

She gestures toward the oven where 24 buttered rolls baked beautifully beside the cobbler. 

 

“And you’ve finished the vegetables?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

“Are you done with your cleaning?”

“Mmhm.”

 

Loki sighs and walks to her slowly, just in case she decided she wanted to smack him for yelling at her earlier. He felt a bit rotten about that.

 

“Are you going to give me more than a one word answer?”

 

She pauses at that and lets out a deep sigh, the kind that came from her very bones. And he felt even worse because this was so much stress on her and she hadn’t meant to be so rude, he knows that. But he keeps quiet until she raises her eyes to his and the anxiety on her face is palpable. He wants to tell her they can do this another time, or never at all. He wants to just spend the day eating and sleeping and enjoying her company but he has a feeling she won’t go for that. She’s got to see this dinner all the way through.

 

“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” she finally says, her voice raspy as if she’d been crying. He hopes she hadn’t while he was lousing around on the patio. He’d feel like absolute shit if he’d made her cry.

 

“I’ve had worse happen to me than the likes of you yelling at me,” he says, quirking his mouth up to get her to smile. She tries for one, but can’t seem to get her lips moving. She stands, in a limbo, in the middle of her spotless kitchen with bare feet and mussed hair and he wants so badly to scoop her up and sing to her till the stress lines in her forehead melt away.

 

“Yeah, well…still wasn’t cute.”

 

“You don’t have to always be cute, you know,” he says, moving into the kitchen to join her. She shrugs, a sort of heavy sort of thing that tells him that she doesn’t believe him at all. He dares to reach out and clasp her shoulder, gently at first and then he starts a slow massage across her neck, down her back and she leans into him, rattling breath slipping out her mouth as she groans low in her chest.

 

“That feels amazing,” she says, in a shaking whisper. “Thank you.” When she turns to look at him, she looks on the verge of confessing something, something he thinks might take all her courage to get out and he hopes for the slightest hint of a second that she’ll tell him something lovely and amazing and impossible. _Do you feel the same as I do?_ He wants to ask her so badly, wants to see the sparkle in her eye when he admits how much his heart thumps for her. But the spell is broken by the ding of the timer on the oven, and she scuttles over to pull out the baked goods, sliding the hot pan of rolls over onto the stove and putting the cobbler onto one of the hot pads on the counter.

 

And just like that, dinner is done.

 

Just in time, too, because it’s a quarter to three and he had a feeling that for once, his brother and the others would be right on time. Mel shoots him what passed for a smile and scoots down the hall to her bedroom, rummaging through her prepared outfits for just the right one. There was a lovely little black floral dress she’d been considering, with a sweetheart neckline and a flared skater skirt that he hoped she’d wear. Loki glances down to his own attire and deciding that jean shorts and a band tee probably wouldn’t cut it, goes into his own room to change.

 

No sooner did he have his oxfords on did he hear the whoosh of Stephen Strange’s portal outside. He brushes the front of his shirt with slightly shaking hands and checks to make sure the pants he’d pulled on were pressed, crisp, and clean. He peeks his head out the door and over to Mel’s room, chuckling a bit to see her hopping on one foot in only her underwear and bra as she struggles to slip on her sandals, pretty little knee high gladiator things she’d bought in Shreveport a few trips back. But her hair’s been swooped back in a pretty fashion and her makeup is light and lovely, so she’s nearly done dressing.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to need any assistance, would you, darling?” he asks, smiling indulgently as she clasps the last strap with a sigh.

 

“Hand me my dress, if you don’t mind,” she says, tottering over to her dresser to put on earrings. “I thought I heard someone outside.”

 

“The portal, yes.” He smooths his hand over the little black dress and even unzips it, gesturing for her to turn around just as she slides one golden hoop through her ear. “Here. I’ll help you get in.”

 

She opens her mouth, presumably to protest, but perhaps his earnestness is written all over his face or she’s just tired of fighting it. He doesn’t care which. He just wants to help. She presses her lips together and nods, turning around to step into the dress and she moves her curls out the way so he can zip her up. He takes a moment to press a feather soft cool kiss to the nape of her neck and just like that, tension flows out her shoulders and body enough that she can finally, actually smile a little.

 

“She’s gonna like me…right?” Mel asks, quietly, slipping the other hoop into her ear and appraising herself in the half mirror. She looks like a dream, if anyone were to ask Loki, but he happens to think she’s stunning in nothing more than short shorts and a cut off tee from the liquor store.

 

“Brun?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

“You really want her to, don’t you?” He can hear the footsteps up the porch and then, a second later, the knock at the front door. And he answers her honestly, because she deserves that. “She will absolutely adore you, sweetheart,” he says, taking her hand in his.

 

She shoots one more glance back to the mirror and meets his eyes, then presses a kiss to his cheek. There’s a nervous flutter to her breath, the way it’s been all day, but there’s not nearly as much anxiety in her eyes as had been. Progress. He likes to think he has something to do with that.

 

Mel shuts her bedroom door, gesturing down the hall, and she lets him lead the way.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The Asgardians are waiting on the porch patiently, chatting among themselves, when Loki opens the front door. He can’t help his smile when he sees the four of them, though he tries to keep it subdued to a slight smirk, but Heimdall catches everything, the way he always does, and his eyes twinkle with amusement.

 

“I’m surprised the lot of you are actually on time,” he says casually, though he’s itching to pull one or all of them into a hug. He doesn’t know when he’s gotten so sentimental, but a year away from his family could have that effect on just about anyone. 

 

“Oh, come on,” Brun drawls, reaching up to hug his neck tightly. “That’s always been your job.” She smelled like something nutty and woodsy, the way she always did and he inhaled deeply, memories of their brief, fun affair coming back to him in waves. Only this time, the memories didn’t affect him in the same way the usually did. This time, they were just fond snapshots of a transitional period of his life. He pulls back at the same time she does and chucks her gently under the chin. 

 

“I’ve never been late to anything in my life,” he lies smoothly, and Thor laughs loudly, then pulls him into a hug so tight, it takes his breath away. For a moment, Loki allows himself to soak in the warmth of his brother, a warmth like the sun, and he breathes in deeply. Leather and sandalwood, a little bit of soap. Thor had gotten washed and worn his best just for a small dinner and it made him smile.

 

“You were late to your own nameday party,” his brother says with a chuckle. “Three years running, actually.”

 

“The nameday boy is never late,” Loki protests, but his own smile can’t be contained. “And that was ages ago! I was a child.”

 

“You still are, honestly,” Heimdall says with mirth in his eyes. He reaches out to grasp Loki’s arm and regards him fondly. “You look well, my prince. Glad to see you.”

 

“And you as well, Heim. Though I’m sure not having me around to pester you serves as a bit of a relief.”

 

“Well, no one said we didn’t appreciate a little break,” Heim counters and Loki snorts out a laugh. He turns to Sif, who bites her lip and grins at him like a girl. He’d only gotten to see her once before his sentence began, when she’d come back from Vanaheim, and so her hug is longer and tighter, though she reaches up and pulls his hair hard.

 

“Ow!” He rubs the sore spot on his scalp and winces. “What was that for?”

 

“It’d be unbecoming of me to pummel you right before dinner. But consider that a precursor to your punishment for deceiving me for four years!”

 

“Oh, so you’re still sore about that? Goodness, Sif. I didn’t think you were one to hold a grudge.”

 

She narrows her pretty eyes at him and crosses arms over chest, but the smile still lingers around her mouth so he knows she isn’t truly upset. 

 

“That’s beside the point. I owe you a knock in the skull and you’ll get it, too.”

 

“Do you promise?” he teases, letting his voice drop a little and she nearly giggles, then seems to remember she was a warrioress and an almost queen. 

 

“I never break a promise, my prince,” she says with a wink, and then she looks up towards the door and behind his head.

 

He turns and finds his Mel, standing still and nervous as a cat with her hands in front of her and her eyes wide and searching. Though she’d met Thor before, she hadn’t met the other three and he could tell she was working up the courage to even say hi. It was Brun who stepped forward first, face open and friendly, and she opened her hands out towards her gently.

 

“It’s very nice to finally meet you in the flesh,” Brun says, her tone soft and welcoming. Mel purses her lips tight and clenches her hands for a moment longer, but finally steps up and takes the older woman’s greeting, though she stammers some and shrinks back as soon as they shake hands.

 

“It’s um...nice to meet you, too.”

 

Brun seems a little saddened at the lackluster greeting but takes it in stride. Mel clears her throat and glances to the floor and Loki wishes he could convince her that none of the people in front of her were intimidating enough for her to be so nervous. But he couldn’t. The thought of meeting her family soon had his stomach in knots, though he was doing a fine job of ignoring them. So he reaches out, his fingers skimming her arm and pulls her close, wrapping a hand about her waist to keep her steady.

 

It works. She glances up at him, mouth parting and he smiles. _See, that wasn’t so hard,_ he says silently and she sucks in a breath, looks ahead again, and lets some of the tension in her body fall away.

 

“Thanks so much for coming,” she offers again and Brun takes the small opening, grinning as she nods. 

 

“Of course! I’m just happy to finally get to meet the Mel Loki talks so much about.” Brun winks at him quickly and he shakes his head with a laugh. “And by a lot, I mean, you’re literally the topic of all his conversations.”

 

“All of them,” Sif concurs, moving up to introduce herself as well. “I’m Sif by the way. Old friend of the Odinsons-”

 

“And one of my future sisters in law,” Loki quips, making Sif turn a pretty shade of scarlett. Heimdall laughs while Thor tries his best to stifle one but fails. “Not that I mind at all. Sif is good people.“

 

“Sif is incredible people,” Brun says with a grin and she wraps an arm around the other woman. “I don’t know if we can say the same for you, Lackey.”

 

He feels Mel stiffen under his arm and so he presses his fingers into the flesh of her hip gently, just to remind her. He is hers and that was that. Lackey was a fond nickname but nothing more, not anymore. Just to reiterate his point, he leans over to press a kiss to her temple and she shudders out a soft sigh, almost as if in relief.

 

“It’s nice to meet you too, Sif,” Mel finally says, so quiet, they can scarcely hear her. It’s a bit unusual but he knows she’s incredibly nervous and anxious for this dinner to go well. He wishes she could know she has no reason to be, at least not where the Asgardians were concerned. Almost as if on cue, Heim and Thor both come to greet her, Thor with a warm hug and a murmuring hello, a rumbling deep sort that Loki knows will soothe her. 

 

It doesn’t mean a tiny spark of jealousy doesn’t stir in his chest, but he tampers it down quickly. It was silly to assume anything about his brother and his beloved, even though the memory of their first meeting (and her somewhat cruel words upon seeing him) still lingered in his mind. But he wouldn’t worry about that. Mel was with him and wanted him and not Thor and he would take that fact and revel in it as obnoxiously as he could.

 

Heimdall’s greeting is as warm as it was comforting. Mel’s demeanor slowly began to change as she invites them all off the porch and into the house. She shoots a quick look down the road to see if her family had arrived yet, but there was no stirring of dust or the purr of engines, so Loki assumes they would be there right at 3:30, the time set for the actual dinner.

 

“Do ya’ll want something to drink or a snack, or...or something? I can make coffee.”

 

“Coffee would be lovely,” Sif says and she takes a seat on the couch. “I’m quite fond of the drink now.”

 

“I’ll take a water,” Heim calls and Thor and Brun ask for beers, if she has them. 

 

“Awesome! I’ll be right back, then. Um...make yourself at home, you can turn on the tv or whatever-I’ve got netflix and a dvd player and I think the DirecTV bill was paid so it should be working and, oh, if you want, there’s some pretzels and m & m’s over on the coffee table-”

 

She’s rambling, but it’s better than her clamming up, and when she takes off to grab the drinks, Loki decides he should follow and help. Mel flutters around the kitchen in a flurry of black floral and curly hair and Loki nearly collides with her when she sweeps past the island to grab a bag of coffee grounds. He reaches out to steady her and holds her shoulders tight, his fingers rubbing circles in the skin there.

 

“Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe in, breathe out.”

 

“In,” she says in a pant, “out. In...out. Okay. I’m fine, I’m…” She swallows and tries to smile but she looks nearly panicked. “Loki, what if I mess the coffee up? What if Sif doesn’t like it? I got a six pack of Cane River brown ale and like, three cans of pilsner and-”

 

“You will be fine. Thor and Brun will be fine with whatever you give them. They’re gracious guests and you are a fantastic hostess.”

 

She licks her lips and tries breathing again, over and over until the grip on the coffee bag isn’t so crushing and he can hear her heartbeat slow to almost normal. 

 

“Okay. Okay, I’m...would you help me?” Her entreaty is timid, tender, and makes him smile and want to kiss her so he does, though gently so as not to mess up her lipstick. 

 

“Of course I will. It’s why I’m here.”

 

Loki makes the coffee and sets up the tray, loading it with extra snacks and napkins. She pulls several of the cold beers from the fridge and makes a pitcher of water for Heim, complete with cubes of clear ice and slices of lemon in case he wants them. All six of her pretty lemon glasses join the pitcher and she places a few spoons besides the coffee cup, grabbing an additional three just in case her folks show up early and want some pre dinner snacks as well.

 

“Alright. Beer, check. Iced water, check. Snacks, check. Coffee?”

 

“Check,” he assures her, holding up the kettle, and she finally smiles, and it reaches her eyes. He can’t help but to kiss her again, deeply, and he lets his mouth trail from hers to her jaw, to her neck, where he spends a moment tasting her skin. There’s the bitter tang of her sweet perfume and an undercurrent of nervous sweat, but he doesn’t care. The motion makes her giggle and relaxes her and her arms come up to curl around his neck until he has to slide the coffee pot back onto the hot pad and wrap her into a full embrace. “Are you alright now?”

 

She thinks for a moment, and makes a face that says no, but she lets out a soft laugh. “Not really. There’s still Jean and Mike to worry about.” She breathes in deep and buries her face into his chest, taking in the scent of him until she nearly purrs in contentment. “I’ma be alright though,” she says softly. “I got you, ain’t I?”

 

 _Always_ , his heart says. “You don’t have much of a choice, darling,” he says and she snorts out a little giggle. “I’m your ward for another year or so yet.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, you could leave if you really wanted.” She pulls back and picks up the tray, her hands steady and head high. “You just don’t wanna.”

 

He watches the sway of her hips as she leads towards the sitting room and his laugh is deep and his voice low, just so she can hear. 

 

“Quite the contrary. Why would I want to miss out on a view like this?”

 

He’s satisfied to find that her skin blushes just a bit as she rounds the corner of the kitchen and slides the tray onto the coffee table.

 

* * *

 

 

Pre dinner drinks and snacks are just the thing she’d needed to warm up to everyone. By the time her parents pickup comes rumbling up the drive, followed by her brother on his bike, she’s relaxed and amiable, leaning into Brun as they laugh at the stories Sif, Thor, and Heim tell at his expense. Normally, he’d be sullen faced and beet red, but he’s learned not to let his past embarrass him much. He’d gotten into all kinds of wild things as a youngster and honestly, the retelling, from the Watcher’s perspective especially, was pretty funny. He finds himself laughing along and cracks open the tab of his second beer just as there’s a knock on the door.

 

While the others don’t pay the motion much attention, Mel stills and her face slides from a laugh to a careful, neutral mask. She tightens her grip on her glass of water and shoots a look to Loki, and so he takes the lead, setting his beer down on a coaster and excusing the two of them.

 

“If you’ll give us a second, we’ve got to answer the door.” 

 

His brother nods and turns back to finish his story, keeping the others occupied. Mel gets up from the couch and moves to his side, her hands starting to shake, so he takes one in his own and squeezes it gently. The knots in his belly come back and he has to dig inside himself to keep from looking as anxious as he feels. It’s less about himself and more about Mel; he knows she wants so very badly for this all to go right.

 

“Alright. We’ve got this,” he says, in a low voice, mostly to himself. But she nods and straightens her spine and her skirt and opens the front door.

 

Loki’s first impression of her mother is that she’s awfully tall for a Midgardian female. His second is that she looks so much like Renee that it’s startling. And his third, gathered in the second right after the first two, is that she has already thoroughly dissected him, though he has yet to say a word. He swallows, blinks quickly, and plasters on a warm smile.

 

“Hello!” he greets. “I’m assuming you are Mrs. Jean?”

 

She gives him a polite smile. 

 

“That’s me! And you must be Loki.”

 

She reaches out to shake his hand and her grip is firm, almost too much. It’s as though she’s trying to assert some show of dominance, one he wishes he could say isn’t necessary. This wasn’t a competition of any sort.

 

Loki nods for lack of anything to say and moves out of her way as she pushes past him, and greets her daughter.

 

“Mel,” Jean says softly, though there’s an edge to it. “Glad to see you’re doing okay! You don’t call or text Mama much anymore.” 

 

Mel makes a face, but wipes it away quickly. “Hi to you too, Mama,” she murmurs. “Just been busy, is all.” She smiles a little brighter and reaches out to her father, pulling him into a side hug.  
“Daddy.”  

 

“Evenin’.”

 

Jean’s husband, a shorter man, follows behind her, and Loki can see where Mel got the shape of her eyes and the curve of her smile from. Mike is darker than his wife and quieter, too, though his gaze is just as judging. But Loki doesn’t falter. He keeps his smile in place and introduces himself.

 

“Loki Odinson, sir.”

 

“Mike.” His smile is tentative, and he says nothing else. He moves into the house behind Jean, and just as Loki thinks perhaps to shut the door, footsteps sound up the porch and a tall, lean young man comes into view.

 

“Hey man,” he says, before Loki can get a word out, and the smile fixed on his face feels significantly more natural now. “Danny.” He shakes a warm, heavy hand and allows Mel’s brother to clear the door. A quick glance over at the younger man and Loki could see the resemblance, though Danny was about his height and still had the softness of a boy’s face. He was ten years Mel’s junior, and was the only person to find Mel in the corner, looking lost and forlorn as her mother and father pushed past her to inspect the home.

 

“Sis.” He wraps her into a hug and Mel sighs happily.

 

“You got taller didn’t you?” she asks, smiling a little and Danny laughs. 

 

“Nah,” he says quietly. Loki finds that much about Danny is quiet, like his father, but not as severe. “Maybe outward, a little.” He pats his barely there belly and Mel snuggles in further, laughing as she does.

 

“Mel?” Jean calls to her as they enter the sitting room and she discovers Thor and the others. “You didn’t tell me we were having other guests!” There’s a laugh, flighty and a little terse. 

 

Mel frowns, but clears her face before her mother can see. “I mentioned that Loki’s brother was probably comin’. Pretty sure of it.”

 

“Oh? Where’d you say that?”

 

Loki picks up a tone he doesn’t like, one that is both accusing and daring Mel to argue otherwise and it reminds him entirely too much of Odin. But Mel straightens her shoulders and raises a brow.

 

“Messenger, Mama. I don’t think you checked it though. It didn’t say it was read-”

 

“Oh, I ain’t paid that any mind. You know I don’t check my messages often.” Her gaze sweeps over the group having drinks and snacks and then back to Mel, eyes narrowing in disapproval. She makes a show of pretending she doesn’t, though. “I mean, as long as you made enough to eat-”

 

“I did,” Mel says quickly. “Plenty, actually.” She breathes in again and gestures towards the sitting room. “Have a seat, ya’ll. Beer, water, coffee?”

 

“Beer is fine for me,” Danny says, and he nods towards Heim and Thor. “Nice to meet ya’ll, I’m Mel’s brother.”

 

“Oh god, I’m so rude,” she says, flustered and flushed as she moves back into the sitting room. “I didn’t even make introductions, I’m so sorry!”

 

Sif smiles sweetly. “Tis fine,” she says, waving Mel away. “Would you like a bit of help?”

 

“Not your job, honey,” Jean cuts in, before Sif can even get off the couch. “This is her party, and you’re her guests and down here, we don’t let folks sit around without being introduced or refreshed.” She shoots Mel a look so sour that Loki flinches. “Gone to the kitchen, I’ll help out.”

 

“Uh, thanks Mama,” she mumbles again, and she makes quick introductions, then rushes towards the kitchen again with Jean on her heels. Loki goes to follow, but Mike’s hand is heavy on his shoulder and he pushes him down to the couch, so that Loki can’t move without being flat out rude. 

 

“So. Tell me about yourself. You seem fairly cozy around this little house.”

 

He struggles to keep his temper from flaring. Though the man is quiet, there’s a current of distrust and dislike that pours from him almost viciously and Loki absolutely hates it. He’s only just met the man; there’s no reason he should be so hostile around him already.

 

“There isn’t much to tell,” he says sharply, and Mike’s gaze never wavers but his grip loosens. And Thor, much to his relief, pipes in with a hearty laugh and insists that there is, in fact, a lot to tell about Loki and proceeds to do just that. He notes, though, that all the details were watered down and sanitized at best and that Heim and Sif both fell into line with that mode of conversation easily. Brun sat back with another beer and chatted up Mel’s brother, who seemed a little smitten already. That was amusing enough to keep Loki’s temper in check.

 

A few minutes pass before Mel and Jean come back to the sitting room. The tension is palpable, thick on Mel’s end so that her grip on the tray is too hard and Loki’s worried she’ll drop it. But she slides it onto the coffee table without much of an issue, though her hands shake a little. He thinks he sees tears in her eyes and he frowns just a touch, staring at her to catch her attention. She refuses to look in his direction. He digs his fingers into his palms and makes room on the couch for her to sit beside him. But instead, she moves over to where her brother is and sits by him and Loki feels something cold and empty shoot through his veins.

 

What had her mother said?

 

Jean looks smug and a little too cheerful to join in on the conversation. Somehow, they’d gone from talking about Loki to talking about Asgard in general and Danny asks a myriad of questions. Mel keeps her mouth shut and her eyes down and her glass of water in her hands goes untouched, though it drips down her hands and onto her skirt. She doesn’t flinch. He watches her while Jean watches him and nudges Mike and he has a feeling they know about their relationship, though Mel’s never said anything at all about them being anything except roommates. She obviously doesn’t approve, not by a long shot, and the irritable, almost angry feeling he gets when he thinks about the woman at Walmart starts to curl up in his chest again. He pops open a can of ale and swallows it down to keep from mouthing off.

 

Heim is in the middle of describing the Bifrost when someone’s stomach grumbles. Sif makes an apologetic face and laughs. 

 

“I suppose I’m hungrier than I thought,” she says with a little smile. 

 

“I’m honestly starving,” Danny says, and he nudges his sister. “When’s the food comin’?”

 

Mel manages to snort out a soft laugh and gets up from the sofa slowly. “Just as soon as I can bring everything into the dining room. It’s right over this way,” she says. She leads the guests into the dining room, where there’s a lovely cream tablecloth setting and fresh flowers from the grocery store as a centerpiece. Mel looks almost proud as she takes in the sight of the nice dishes and glasses, and when her mother comes behind her and compliments the table cloth, she actually beams.

 

Maybe, Loki thinks, as he slips off with her to get the food, everything will be just fine.

 

And at first, it is. Whatever issue Jean and Mike seem to have with him is either swept under the rug for two hours or they’ve let it go. He’s not lucky enough to have the latter, and he’d be just fine with the former, if only so that Mel laughs the way she does during dinner as she talks to Brun and giggles with her brother and squeezes his hand under the table. He can’t help the looks he gives her or how his attention never strays from her when her father asks her about the porch and how she’d done her floors.

 

“Loki helped,” she says, putting her fork down onto the empty plate. They’d all devoured the roasts and potatoes and were working on dessert now, though Mel had already eaten her small piece of cobbler and ice cream. Loki was working on a second helping and thought about thirds. The cobbler was amazing.

 

“Really?” Brun asks with a chuckle. “You mean you actually got Lackey to do something besides sulk in the corner?”

 

“After a little coercion, yeah.” She shoots Brun a grin and then glances to him and her eyes sparkle a bit at the memory of threatening to lock him outside the house naked if he didn’t help her with the floors. Loki feels heat creap across his cheeks.

 

“I would have most happily assisted with the repairs if she hadn’t been such a terror before.”

 

“I was not!” she protests, and really, she wasn’t. They just hadn’t gotten along much back then, though he realizes now that the attraction had always been there. “You were doing everything possible to make living here harder because you just knew if you acted up enough, I’d send you back to Norway.”

 

“I’m surprised it didn’t work,” Heim chimes in with a laugh. “He can be quite irritating when he wants to be.”

 

“Is this the “pick on Loki” hour?” he grumbles, but he isn’t really annoyed by it. If she’ll laugh at his expense, he doesn’t care. “You try adjusting to this heat and then tell me if you wouldn’t be a bit irritable.”

 

“You broke my floor.”

 

“I am never going to outlive that. Never.”

 

“Oh Norns, tell us the story again?” Sif asks, leaning forward with a clap of her hands. “We’ve always told Loki he’s far heavier than he takes accounting for.”

 

“Dude, how much do you weigh?” Danny asks. “250? I mean, you’re tall, but…”

 

“Double that, add about 150,” Mel clarifies and Danny whistles. Loki smirks proudly, and can’t help but preen a bit. He’d been almost criminally underweight all his life and now, after months of eating well, he’d finally caught up. He’d never be quite as buff as his brother but he filled out just fine for his species. “The Aesir tend to get a bit bigger than us humans do.”

 

“I swear, I’m never gonna get used to the idea of that,” Danny says. “We were just kids; everyone always said aliens were just imagination but lo and behold...they’re real.”

 

“But who really is the alien?” Brun asks, sipping her beer. “It depends on the context. Where I lived, on Sakaar, everyone was an alien because no one belonged there.”

 

“What exactly is Sakaar?” Jean asks. “Some sort of prison colony?” She picks at her cobbler and listens to the conversations quietly, her eyes watching them all with a level of distaste that made Loki’s skin prickle in irritation. She’d been doing that all evening, though at least she’d had the decency to keep it under wraps for the last hour or so. And with the change in her tone and the shift in her attitude, he could feel Mel start to deflate too.

 

“Uh, not exactly, no-” Brun starts, but Jean smiles tightly and pushes through.

 

“Not exactly? It either is or ain’t one. I mean, this one right here’s a criminal, and all of ya’ll are friends.” She gestures to Loki and leans back in her chair and he has to bite his tongue to not say something nasty.

 

Brun’s entire expression changes. “Sakaar is Sakaar. That’s all there is to that.”

 

“I agree,” he finally says, catching her eye and begging her to play it cool. “I was there for a shorter period of time than Brun, but it really is its own animal. There is no other way to describe Sakaar. It is what it is.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“I do wonder,” Heim pipes in, studying Jean intensely, “why you’d assume it’s simply a prison colony or that all of us are a group of criminals. With the exception of Loki, none of us present have ever been in any trouble with the law.”

 

Brun’s smile curls up in spite of the tension. “Well, there was that one time…” She waves her hand and takes a swig of her beer and drops that train of thought. If that was the story Loki thought she was going to tell, it was probably better she didn’t, at least not in front of Mel’s parents. 

 

“But that once doesn’t make you a criminal, Brun,” Heim continues. He shoots Loki an almost apologetic look. “I’m afraid that doesn’t excuse you, my prince.”

 

Loki shakes his head with a shrug. “I very well cannot deny that.”

 

“Yeah, and about that…” Mike narrows his eyes at Loki and then at Thor. “How are the two of you royalty? Who made ya’ll such?”

 

Thor thinks for a moment. “That’s...a long story, but if you’ve got the time-”

 

“We don’t,” Jean says, and she folds her arms across her chest. “Not right now, but maybe another day.”

 

Thor smiles weakly. “Perhaps.”

 

“Mama,” Mel says, trying to keep her voice light and level. “What’d you think about the roast? Was it alright?” It was a deliberate attempt to change the subject, but it seems as though Jean was completely intent on ruining the dinner. She scoffs. 

 

“Meat wasn’t tender enough.” It’s said as dryly as if she were discussing the weather. “A little too salty. I tell you all the time to watch your seasoning. Good food don’t need all that salt, it just covers up what you didn’t do right.”

 

“I thought it was fine,” Danny says, glancing at his sister. “You think everything is salty, Mama.”

 

“I can’t eat all that salt anymore,” she grumbles, glaring at her son. “You know that. So does she. I don’t know who she thought she was cookin’ for, but it wasn’t me.”

 

“Was it too salty for you, Daddy?” Mel asks, her voice strained and tiny. “I’m sorry if it was.”

 

Mike shrugs. “It was alright. You crock pot it?”

 

She nods. “Overnight and with some onion and garlic.”

 

“But no tenderizer,” Jean says with a sigh. “And you wouldn’t have needed salt if you’d used it.”

 

Mel throws her hands up and opens her mouth to protest that she had, in fact, put in tenderizer. Loki had seen her do it himself. But Jean cuts her off before she can get a word out.

 

“And what’s the problem with keeping your place up?” Jean looks about the small dining room and it’s as if she’s desperately reaching for something to be wrong with the house. It was clean, almost impeccably so, and the decor was tasteful and modern. Loki couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Neither could Danny, apparently. He narrows his eyes at his mother and frowns.

 

“The house looks clean to me,” he says in a grumbling voice. It softens when he turns to Mel. “It’s cute too, sis. Sweet little place.”

 

“It’s tiny. You had all that money-”

 

“It was only 60 grand,” Mel says tightly, and Jean tilts her head.

 

“Watch your tone.” Her voice is so hard it makes Mel flinch and she sinks back until she’s as far from the table as possible. “60 thousand dollars is a lot of money, and you could have bought an actual house instead of this pitiful little trailer house.” She sniffs disdainfully. “And now you’re too broke to get your road paved.”

 

“I don’t need it paved!” Mel protests. “It’s got rocks down, it’s fine. And I like my house, it doesn’t need to be that big. It’s just me and Loki and-”

 

“Didn’t I say to watch your mouth?!” Jean’s voice bellows out across the table and everyone goes silent, except Mike who hums as though nothing at all is going on. Loki reaches blindly for Mel’s hand but comes up short. She has the tablecloth in hand, clenching it hard and he has a very bad feeling something is going to happen.

 

“Would you excuse me a second?” Mel asks, voice strained and barely a whisper. She pushes away from the table and stumbles a bit as she stands, and on instinct, he reaches out to steady her. He can feel the burn of everyone’s gaze on her and on him but he doesn’t care; he just needs to make sure she can get away from the table and to her room or the bathroom for a moment’s respite. He’s honestly tempted to tell everyone to just go home, but she’d never forgive him for being so rude. So instead, he shoots the guests an apologetic smile and moves to stand with her.

 

“Where are you going?” Jean asks, brow furrowed deeply and Loki sucks in a breath just as Mel reaches out a hand to him. She grasps his and squeezes it tightly, as if she needs his touch just to keep her composure. And for a long moment, she says nothing. Her eyes close and she draws in air until she can stand straighter and steadier.

 

“I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a-”

 

“Yeah, you’re feeling some kind of way about being called out on your nonsense,” her mother says, sighing hard and shaking her head. She frowns and regards her daughter almost poisonously. “Why is it that whenever anyone starts telling the truth about you and how stupid you can be, you clam up and wanna run to the back?” She takes a bite of her cobbler and wrinkles her nose, setting the fork down. “Stuff’s too sweet. You should have gotten a better brand; you know the cheap ones have nothing but sugar.”

 

“Mama.”

 

Danny’s voice is a warning, deep and cool in the almost stifling air of the dining room, but Jean refuses to heed it. She looks up at her son and snorts haughtily, and Loki isn’t sure if he’s more angry at the woman or her husband, who eats his dessert quietly and refuses to say a word in defense of his obviously distraught daughter. Loki bites his tongue to keep his mouth shut, his eyes locking with Brun, who opens her mouth to try and diffuse the situation.

 

“Do you make your cobblers homemade Mrs. Jean?” Brun asks, reaching for something, anything, so that the tension doesn’t strangle them all. Loki’s gratitude is written all over his face and he slides a hand around Mel’s waist to tug her back towards the bedrooms. He only needs to get her somewhere quiet and cool, away from her mother, and preferably into his arms so that she can either cry or scream or both. She stares blankly at the wall and doesn’t move at first, but with his nudging, she slips around the dining room chair and starts back toward the hall.

 

“Oh, no, I don’t bother with sweets anymore,” Jean says, and she leans in and smiles artificially. “But I can definitely cook a good cobbler if I need to. Maybe I should have, it would have been better than this.” She rolls her eyes and Brun looks nearly panicked because this wasn’t working. Loki does his best to pay it no mind; they’re very nearly to the hall and all he has to do is get Mel to the bathroom and-

 

“I mean, if I had known Mel was going to skimp on the food, I’d have stayed home and ate ramen noodles instead.”

 

Mel’s body stiffens and Danny lets out a low groan because he can tell, just as surely as everyone else can, that there’s going to be a blowback now. And though he knows she doesn’t need the extra stress, Loki can’t be fucked to care enough to hold her back anymore. His hand moves from her waist but he stands at her side, giving her his silent support. So when she stomps back over to the kitchen table, heavy footed and so angry he thinks her brown skin flushes red, he doesn’t even bother to stop her.

 

“Maybe you should have, Mama! Maybe you shoulda ate the dog’s food instead of my slop!”

 

“Excuse me?!” Jean yells, head turning incredulously. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to and cussin’ like that but-”

 

“You!” Mel screeches. And that, he knows, is when the rope snaps. “I’m talkin’ to you, Mama! Who the hell else is here critiquing every little single solitary thing I have in my house for the fun of it? Who the hell else is pissed off about fuckin’ blackberry cobbler that I paid way too much money to make _homemade_ , money I ain’t got, money I could have saved to get gas and get to work next week? Huh? I don’t see Danny saying anything. I don’t see Daddy saying _shit_ , but maybe he’s too scared of your big hateful ass to say anything!”

 

“Now look here,” Mike finally grumbles, his voice booming through the little house like thunder, but Mel doesn’t back down. She moves around the table until she’s right in front of her father, and slams her hand onto the top of it, rattling the dishes. Sif and Thor glance around nervously, but Heim and Brun pick up their coffees and watch curiously, while Danny nearly smirks.

 

“No, Daddy, you look here! I have done nothing but break my back and break the bank to make ya’ll dinner because I wanted to treat you after not seeing ya’ll for months. I wanted ya’ll in my house that I paid for and that I pay the bills in and that I keep as clean as I can because I am proud of it and I wanted ya’ll to be proud of it too. But that was too much to ask, huh? Cause Mama always has to find somethin’. Nothing is ever right for her unless you do exactly what she wants and even then it’s not right!”

 

Jean’s face is hard and Loki’s stomach drops at her next words.

 

“I know exactly what you’re doin’ with that...that... _thing_ in here. I can tell.” She leans back in her chair and twiddles her thumbs. “I’ve told you over and over that nothing good ever comes from giving up the goods before the cow’s bought.”

 

“Good thing she’s not a cow, huh?” Danny asks, looking a lot like his mother, but even angrier. “Good thing she’s a grown woman who can make her own choices, right? Or no, cause you literally did everything in your power to keep her from ever growing up and from out of your shadow.”

 

“You needed someone at home you could boss around and pick on,” Mel says with a bitter laugh. It hurts Loki to hear. He moves closer and his hand barely brushes her skin, but it’s enough. She stands even straighter and her eyes never waver, and he’s so proud of her. “You thought you had me, but you don’t. You tossed Duck to the side when she did what she wanted that made her happy and you’ll do the same to me, but guess what? I don’t care. I’m tired of caring.” She shakes her head and her face screws up and she slams the table again, harder, rattling the dishes again and knocking over a glass of lemonade. “I am tired, so, so, tired! I’M SO TIRED, I CAN’T-”

 

She cuts off with a choke and Jean’s face slips from smug and self righteous to almost worried.

 

“You need to calm down,” she tries, but it’s no use. Mel shakes her head and then she screams, so loud that Loki winces. 

 

“Oh, shut up!” She bellows. “Stop tellin' me what to do! I’M TIRED!”

 

And then, she nearly collapses and starts to cry, shuddering little wracks that barely come out whole, but that break Loki’s heart to pieces. He pulls her into his lap and holds her close and glares at her parents, who suddenly want to look concerned. Danny frowns but moves from his chair and over to Mel, wrapping an arm around her as Loki stands and leans across the table.

 

“You need to leave.”

 

Jean snorts. “I don’t need to do anything! First of all, you’re a criminal. You have no right to tell me to anything!”

 

“As of right now,” Loki says, his voice never raising but just as cold as could be, “this is my house as well. And you are not welcomed in my house at this moment. _Get out_.”

 

Mike sighs sadly. He tosses his napkin onto the table and moves to leave, but Jean holds him back. She stands and asserts every inch of her height, considerable as it is for a human female. But Loki is taller and Loki is scarier, too, and his girlfriend, who he knows he loves now more than anything, is sobbing on the floor of her house because her mother was too hard headed to see how cruel she could be.

 

There’s a moment where the air in the house chills so dramatically that even Heim, who knows better and who was probably expecting the shift, shudders. But he almost smirks approvingly and when the horns sprout and Jean shouts, Thor starts to laugh.

 

“You know, I thought I’d never see the day,” he vaguely hears his brother says, but blood is thumping in his ears and he’s too mad to care about the drop of the glamour. Let them see who he really was, then. Let them all get a good glance at who they’d have to deal with if they ever hurt Mel.

 

“This,” he hisses, pointing to the obsidian horns curling from his forehead, the red eyes, the blue skin, “is what your daughter has been sheltering and caring for for the last year. A monster. And somehow, even a monster knows to care for someone as beautiful and strong and incredible as she is. Somehow, the woman who birthed her couldn’t even be fucked to do as much.”

 

To her credit, Jean doesn’t back away, though her hands clench the arms of the chair so hard, he’s sure she’ll snap them. Her mouth presses into a hard line and she blinks back tears of her own, though if they’re from remorse or simply from staring into his red sclera for too long, he can’t be sure. He honestly give not one shit. In the background, Danny gathers his sister into his arms and along with Brun and Sif, they take her to the bathroom quietly.

 

“That’s not true,” Jean finally says, in a sort of half whisper. “You don’t understand! I raised her to do better, to do right-”

 

“Whatever your thoughts on what is right and what is wrong seem to vary severely from those of everyone else,” Heimdall cuts in smoothly. “I do not know what your morals lie, but I will say this; if they involve the isolation and abandonment of a child simply because you disagree with whom she takes as a lover, then...well..you’re not much of a parent, then are you?”

 

Jean blinks and shakes her head and opens her mouth to protest, but a sob comes out and she moves from the table hurriedly, stalking out the door with a remorseful Mike on her heels. “Honey, wait,” he calls, but she’s down the porch steps and on her way to the car before he can catch up.

 

 _Good riddance_ , Loki thinks, fighting to get his temper under control and the glamor back on. But there really was no use in it; everyone had seen everything already. Well, if he was going to truly be comfortable in his own skin, he might as well get used to the curious looks.

 

He finds, though, there really aren’t any. Thor looks at him almost proudly and Heim is getting up, gathering his glass as he makes his way towards the door. 

 

“Probably prudent if we call it an evening,” he says, offering Loki a slight smile. There’s some pride in that smile too, and so Loki lets the blue flood his skin completely and the horns remain. He doesn’t want to hide. He doesn’t need to. “If things are a little bit better in a few days, perhaps we all could gather for lunch?”

 

“Or a barbeque,” Thor chimes in, and he pats Loki’s shoulder gently. “Do give Mel my best wishes. Take care of her.”

 

Loki nods and turns toward the hall, his steps slow and easy, his heartbeat slowing with every calming breath. Mel didn’t need to see him angry. She needed his comfort instead.

 

Danny met him at the door, his face still in an angry scowl, but it eased as he met Loki. There was a brief flash of surprise at his appearance, but nothing untoward and it put Loki more at ease. “Hey, thanks man.”

 

“Whatever for?” he asks. He can’t imagine why he needed to be thanked for common courtesy.

 

“Because...I don’t know. I don’t think she’d had the courage to do that-” and he waves toward the dining room “-without you being here like you have. Girl’s got a mouth on her now.” Danny grins softly and nods towards the bathroom. “Uh, your sisters in law are in there with her still. She stopped crying, but I think she wants ya.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“I’m gonna head to Duck’s probably. I don’t wanna put up with Mama tonight.”

 

Loki smiles sympathetically. “I don’t blame you. Do give your sister my regards. And fill her in on the gossip, I suppose. I’m sure she’ll have her own words of comfort for Mel.”

 

Danny nods. “Definitely. Thanks for taking care of my sister, dude.” He strolls down the hall, tall and imposing, and Loki knocks gently on the bathroom door. Brun cracks it open and her expression is somewhere between heartbroken and righteously livid. It softens, too, when she sees him and she tilts her head to the side.

 

“Blue’s your color, Lackey.”

 

“Thank you, dear Brunhilde.”

 

She snorts out a soft laugh and moves to the side, allowing him to step inside the small, dimly lit bathroom. One of the light bulbs had apparently gone out, and so the remaining light cast shadows on the walls. Sif sat on the toilet beside Mel, who curled up in the tub, face blank and her mouth shut determinedly. He had a feeling that crying in front of strangers had clammed her up and he mentally prepared to pull out some sort of emotion so that she wouldn’t stew in her own misery for too long. That wasn’t healthy at all.

 

“Are you going to be alright, love?” Sif asks sweetly. Mel glances her way, blinks, and nods once. Sif sighs but shoots her a smile and then another to Loki. She pats his hand and then reaches up to tug at a lock of hair, affectionately, reminding him in a lot of ways of his own mother. He felt a pang pass through him but it faded just as quickly, and he fought back his own sadness to focus on the woman still in the tub. 

 

“I’ll talk to you later, Loki,” Sif says softly, and she and Brun leave, offering Mel gentle goodbyes and see you laters. She doesn’t respond to either. Loki takes Sif’s spot on the toilet and waits. He refuses to push her right now; when she needs to, he knows she’ll open up.

 

It’s a long wait and his legs cramp enough from sitting that he has to get up and stretch them at the bathroom mirror. Her tweezers still sit on the counter and he picks them, smoothing his hands across his jaw and finding a few stray black hairs to pluck. He never could grow a beard, but every once in a while, a few wiry hairs would pop up on his chin and throw off his grooming habits.

 

And then she shifts in the tub and her voice is so small it hurts.

 

“She’s never going to talk to me again.”

 

It’s on the tip of his tongue to scoff and tell her good riddance, but he can’t, not when she looks so broken, not when every beautiful light in her had been dimmed. So instead, he reaches out and takes her limp hand in his, massages the joints of her fingers, and she shivers a bit from the coolness of his touch.

 

“She may very well not speak to you for a long time.” He wishes he could say for certain but he can’t. “However...perhaps that is the best thing for right now.”

 

“I don’t…” She swallows heavily and lets out a rasping breath, shaking her head. “I wish I could believe that. But I don’t know if I can.”

 

“Why?” He smooths his fingers over the lines in her knuckles and tries to think of how to encourage her when he isn't sure if he can. “You are strong and ridiculously intelligent, my dear. I don’t see why you need your mother for anything at this point in your life.”

 

She turns her head and watches him with a frown on her face, lip wobbling, and he wishes he could take it back. In truth, he hadn’t really needed his father for much, except for love and acceptance and pride and it was nearly too late by the time he’d finally gotten even a morsel of that. Not everything had to do with money, he knew now. He almost apologizes until she laughs brokenly and her hand clenches inside his tightly.

 

“I don’t know how to live without them,” she finally says, and she starts to cry again, gasping for breath and trying to explain her hurt between sobs. Loki hates that he’s made her cry again. He pulls her hand to his mouth and presses kisses there, whispering little soft murmurs but nothing seems to help. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without either of them. Who else do I have? Who else honestly is going to love me?” She curls in on herself and lowers her head to her knees and every sob pierces through his heart until he can’t stand it any longer. 

 

Loki pulls away from her hand and she whines, glancing up to see if he’s deserting her. Instead, he tugs off his shoes and scoots her forward in the too small tub, crowding behind her until he’s pressed inside as tightly as he can get. The discomfort means nothing. He holds out his arms and she crawls into his lap and he lets her cry, and cry, and cry.

 

* * *

 

 

She falls asleep like that. It takes a certain amount of finesse to crawl out the tub with her sleeping body in his arms without waking her, but he manages. A few bruised knees and leg cramps later and he’s got her tucked into bed, his bed, snuggled between several pillows and wrapped up in his sheets. The air conditioning is on and the room is dark, though it’s still light outside and the sun is sweltering in the sky. He thinks perhaps he’ll stay with her a bit; and for a few hours he does, reading as she naps, his body there for her to curl up to when she shifts in her sleep and sighs.

 

But the light wanes and she sleeps on and Loki’s hungry again. And there’s the dining room and the kitchen to clean, so he starts on that after he makes a quick plate of food, piling most of the leftover food into Tupperware containers and finding a spot for them in the fridge. He ends up reorganizing the entire thing, cleans it out with soapy water and bleach, and then starts on the dishes before finally finishing up in the dining room. By that time, it’s nearly 10 pm and the moon hangs in the sky like a bright, glimmering beacon, peeking through the blinds of the kitchen’s window invitingly. And just as he thinks he’ll take a beer and head out to the patio for a night cap, Mel patters into the kitchen drowsily, still in her little black dress, barefoot with mussed hair and red rimmed eyes.

 

But she’s so beautiful to him that he doesn’t care and he smiles and reaches out to her and to his joy, she comes, as easily as ever.

 

“You haven’t changed back,” she says, her voice groggy and thick. She reaches out to trace the ridges of his horns and he bites back a slight moan because it’s one of his erogenous zones, especially when she’s touching him there. He dips his head to her neck and presses a soft kiss there, eliciting a sigh, one a lot less painful than before. The light in her eyes is dimmed, still, but he hopes that with time (and a little bit of righteous anger to dull the ache) that she’ll brighten up again.

 

And even if it takes a long, long time, well...he’s got plenty of time for that. Norns only knows how long he’ll live and he’s half a mind to stay in this little sleepy, drowsy town forever if it meant he’d get to stay there with her.

 

“I see no need, honestly,” he finally says, flexing his hand under the light of the kitchen and taking note of every line that mapped across his skin. It still was a marvel, and he still recoiled at times, but with every passing day and with every little smile she gave him in this form, his true form, he felt a bit more comfortable being just himself. He didn’t think he’d ever get to the point that he’d want to parade about all blue and horned and terrible, but in the comfort of Mel’s home, he could let loose and that was one of the most marvelous things that had ever happened to him. 

 

“Brun was right, you know. Blue is your color.” She offers him a ghost of a smile and pulls back a bit, enough to turn and regard her kitchen and then the smile deepens. “And you cleaned up for me too! God, you’re really earning your keep.”

 

“I’d like to think that being your live in sex toy earns my keep,” he quips, hoping he’d make her laugh. It works. She snorts out something raucous and shakes her head, curls falling across her eyes that she doesn’t bother to brush out the way. But when the laughter dies she seems lost, set adrift, and he knows she’s thinking of the dinner and the days that will inevitably lie ahead.

 

He doesn’t know what to say she should expect, but he does know that he’ll be here, willingly, sentence or no.

 

“Did she say anything when she left?”

 

“Your mother?”

 

She nods. 

 

“She seemed...almost sorry.” 

 

Mel breathes in deeply and shrugs. “Well. What’s done is done. I suppose I could apologize. But why should I? I meant what I said and I said what I meant and...maybe I coulda cut down on some of the cussin’, but…”

 

“I’m sure your sister will call you in the morning,” he offers and she hums. 

 

“I could use a call from Duck. Too bad I’ve got work in the A.M.”

 

Loki frowns. He’d almost forgotten about that and the prospect of spending an entire day with those idiots while dealing with all of this seemed almost overwhelming even from his limited perspective.

 

“You could always utilize all those sick days you never take,” he suggests. She opens her mouth to argue otherwise, reconsiders, and then seems to agree.

 

“I could...yeah, I think I’ll do that. Mind making sure I’m up in time to call in?”

 

“Not at all, sweet girl.”

 

He pulls her close again and takes her chin between his fingers, meeting her eyes and sliding his thumb across her jaw. She leans into his touch and he gets a brilliant idea, one he knows will cheer her up if only a bit.

 

“Let’s go swimming, darling.”

 

Mel blinks. “Now?”

 

He nods and she makes a face of surprise. And then, with a fleeting grin, she leans up to kiss his lips. 

 

“Alright.”

 

He strips out of his clothes and tugs on the swimming trunks that were clean, bright red things with crawfish on them. She’d bought them as a joke; he hates to admit they were his favorites. She settled on a simple one piece and some flip flops and almost beat him outside to the water’s edge, skipping a little as her feet touched the warm water. 

 

“You know, the last time I went night swimming, I was 19. And I had a crush on this guy...he was a lot older than me, and he totally buttered me up and made me think I was special.”

 

 _You are_ , he almost says, but she’s not done talking. She slings her towel over the branch of the mossy oak that bordered the lake and stretched her legs out to sink into the water, mindful of weeds and roots in the shallow end.

 

“Anyway, he was the first guy I ever gave a blow job to.”

 

Loki raises a brow and makes a face and she laughs, but it’s hollow. 

 

“I’m...hm.”

 

“Yeah. He told me to never try that again ‘cause I sucked at it.” She gives a little laugh. “No pun intended, of course.”

 

“Did you heed his unwarranted advice?”

 

She slides further into the water and he follows, grasping her waist as the water covers her slowly, from hip all the way up to her neck. A few more steps and she’ll be over her head and he’ll have to hold her so she won’t go under. He knows how much she wishes she could just swim on her own. He wishes she knew that he loves being her life raft.

 

“I did. For a long time, I didn’t bother with giving head. Hell, for a long time, I didn’t bother with men, period. Not that anyone was bitin’ but still.”

 

“He was an absolute buffoon,” Loki grumbles, flashes of memory at the first time she’d ever given him oral pleasure going through his mind and he shudders. 

 

“Yeah, that’s why he’s married to some chick with three kids and hates his life now. Karma, I guess.” She turns on her tiptoes in the water and looks up at him. “You cold? You can’t be cold, it’s nice and hot out here.”

 

“Mmm no. Just…” He shakes his head and waves the explanation away. “Do you want to float?”

 

She leans back with a soft sigh and stretches out slowly, the way she always does. He gets into position and holds her lightly, encouraging her to not fight the water, to not fight him, and eventually, she manages to relax. 

 

“One of these days, I’m gonna learn to do this myself.”

 

“You are,” he concurs. His fingers graze the smooth, slick skin of her shoulders and the fabric of her bathing suit and he turns a bit in the water, until he’s behind her and she’s staring right up at him. She smiles at him and her fingers trail about idly as she muses aloud.

 

“I need help.” She pauses, blinks, and turns her head a bit. “I need to see someone. I’ve been sayin’ that for years, you know but...I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do this alone.”

 

“A therapist then?”

 

“Yeah. I gotta look into the insurance and all that to see how to go about findin’ one but...I gotta.” She wrinkles her nose and seems annoyed at the prospect. “And maybe even meds, though god knows I don’t wanna take none.”

 

“I understand your hesitation,” he says, because he does. “But if it would help...then please pursue it.” He brushes wet hair from her temples and the moonlight glimmers off her skin in such a way that it reminds him of some magnificent, glowing goddess. His emotions still run high, he figures, which probably explains why he’s all poetic at the moment, but he doesn’t care anymore. 

 

“I will. I mean, I’m gonna have to learn to love myself I guess.” Her lip wobbles again but she doesn’t cry. Instead, she breathes in deep and closes her eyes for a long moment, going silent as he helps her float in the water.

 

And it’s a minute or so after, when he reaches up on instinct to move hair from his neck, that he realizes she’s still floating. She doesn’t realize it, he can tell, because otherwise, she’d panic. He’s hesitant to say anything but something about the last thing she’d just said prompt him to give her that little happy piece of news. That, and the more he looks at her and the more he thinks about her and about the bruises on his knees and the house ahead of him, the more he wants her to know what dwells in his heart.

 

He leans down and kisses her forehead and she opens her eyes slowly, starlight exploding in the darkness of her irises. She takes his breath away.

 

“Wassup?”

 

Loki draws every bit of courage from inside himself and smiles at her tenderly. Even if she says nothing back it’ll be out in the open. Even if she decides she doesn’t want him in the same way, he’ll be hers.

 

“I’ve got a secret to tell you,” he says, conspiratorially and she hums in expectation. “Firstly, you’re floating.”

 

“Yeah? I mean, you’re behind me and you’re holdin’...” She trails off when she realizes his hands gathered atop his head and that he’s grinning so proudly his mouth hurts. And like he thought she would, she starts to flail and panic, so that he has to steady her again and push her back above water. 

 

“Loki!” she screeches, and he holds her tight, until she stills and relaxes again.

 

“I’m here, sweet girl! I’m here.” His hands are cool and they press into her flesh for stability, then slowly fall away until finally she knows she’s doing this all her own. She starts to laugh, happily, and tilts her head to him.

 

“I can’t believe I did that!” she says in an awed whisper. “Shit. I can’t believe I’m doin’ this!” She laughs again and blinks and he isn’t sure if there’s tears on her face or water. He kisses the droplets away anyway. 

 

“I can. How many times have I told you that you’re brilliant? How many times have I told you you could do anything?”

 

Mel sniffles and grins. “A bunch.”

 

“A bunch.” He eases back and for a minute, she’s content to simply float, to enjoy the buoyancy of the water around her without his assistance. And then, she frowns and splashes a bit of water in his direction to get his attention again. “Hey. What was the other part of the secret?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“You said firstly,” she works out, and he bites his lip as anticipation and anxiety roils through his belly. “Which means you got more for me.”

 

“Ah. Ever perceptive.” He brushes his lips across her nose to make her giggle. “Well, yes, you’re quite right. There is um, a second portion to…” He coughs, breathes in deeply again, and finally decides to just say it. 

 

“Honestly, the floating wasn’t planned. It wasn’t part of the secret.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yes. Truthfully, I only meant to tell you that I love you.”

 

He pauses and waits and she nods her head, as if what he’d said was as mundane as him telling her the moon shone brightly. But then he realizes she’s replaying what he’d just said in her head again and again until the realization strikes her. He can pinpoint exactly when it does and her face changes and though he thinks maybe she’ll flail in the water again, this time, she’s surprisingly apt at adjusting so that she remains afloat. 

 

She blinks hard and opens her mouth, then shuts it, and when her face screws up, he knows for a fact that the water on her face is tears and not from the lake around them. He hopes to everything they’re happy tears. 

 

“You mean it?”

 

She sounds so scared that he can’t help but pull her up from the water and wrap her into his arms. She wraps her legs around him instinctively and he pushes soggy hair from her face. 

 

“With every single fiber of my being. With all the breath in my body. You told me you didn’t know how you’d live without your parents because who else could love you...and well...I love you.” It’s easier and easier to say the more he says it and it thumps inside his chest with so much meaning that it almost hurts. “I’m so very much in love with you.”

 

She bursts into a full cry and laughs as she does and she’s kissing him before he can really process her reaction. It’s clumsy, a little sloppy, but it’s perfect, and she molds into him as she drags her fingers through his damp hair, hitching little breaths on his lips and her nose brushing his own.

 

“You know,” she says, tears still clogging her throat. “I meant to tell you a secret of my own.”

 

“Did you?” He pushes back into the deeper part of the lake and clears the trees still at the edge, until the waves are a little rougher and they bob about like a cork on the surface. “Do tell.”

 

He has never seen anything as beautiful, as wonderful, as amazing as her when she bites her lip and smiles in the moonlit night.

 

“I love you, too.”

 

Loki thinks, perhaps, that he’ll die if his heart beats any faster. He thinks, too, as he kisses her again and again, dips her under the water and brings her up laughing, that there would probably be no better way to die than in her arms. They float out into the lake, his hand in hers, and stare up at the stars for a long time, until the water grows too cold and wrinkles the tips of their fingers.

 

"Hey."

 

"Hmm?" He turns his head and she flops over onto her belly, kicking a little as she does to balance herself. It only helps marginally; she flails some when she remembers that while she's managed to learn to float, she still can't swim, and so Loki holds her close to him and she giggles a bit, then wraps her body around his intuitively. 

 

"I was thinking about something. About what happened at Walmart and...about why it bothered me and-"

 

"Yes?" He nuzzles her temple and presses a kiss there and he wants to tell her he loves her again because it's threatening to spill over.

 

"Would it be too much trouble if you...I don't know...did something a little out of pocket for ole Betty?" She looks almost devious, and he's proud to think that maybe, just maybe, he's rubbed off on her a tiny bit. One skin rash coming up, and he concocts a million different spells and potions she can take with her the next time she goes to work that'll be effective.

 

Loki can feel the chuckle rumbling up from his belly and he lifts her from the water until she squeals in delight. 

 

"I thought you'd never ask."

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr! I don't bite :)
> 
> lilithenaltum. tumblr. com


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